The Influence of Social Interaction on the Perception of Opinion Climate

by KIM, YOUNG MIE

On discovering that the current studies on the process of public opinion formation overlook the existent problem of perception of others as the central aspect of the process and thus disenable us to comprehend the essence of the opinion formation process, this thesis discusses the problem regarding the perception of opinion climate, i.e., the trend of others' opinion within social system, through the perceptive approach of opinion climate, which is now considered a new direction of public opinion studies.

The examination of existing studies on perception of others reveals the following limitations: ① explaining the phenomena of misperception, often discovered in the process of opinion climate perception, merely as "the attitude of the irrational public" or "the irrationality of public opinion," clarifying neither the reason for such misperception nor the conditional variables concerning misperception; ② those studies that do search for the conditional variables of misperception laying excessive emphasis on intrapersonal variables, e.g., human attribution and personality variable; ③ lacking recognition of the fact that the process of "experience" through "actual" relation with others mediates the process of opinion climate perception, by presuming the process of opinion climate perception as an intrinsic cognitive process of a person; ④ overlooking the influence that interpersonal communication, one of the two channels of human communication, can have on the process of opinion climate perception, thereby focusing excessively on the mass media, the other channel, when the studies recognize the process of opinion climate perception essentially as a communication process and thus establish the communication variable as a conditional variable.

Therefore, with regard to the relation between "me" and "others" as the substantial foundation of the perception of opinion climate, this thesis attempts to explain the perception of opinion climate, or more specifically the various phenomena of misperception discovered in such perception, as an effect of interpersonal variables, which focus on the relation between persons, rather than pure intrapersonal variables. In detail, this study is an empirical examination of the influence that social interaction- the interpersonal act of exchanging opinions and viewpoints on public issues based on social relation of persons within social system - has upon the perception of opinion climate, i.e., the perception of congruency, the perception of opinion distribution, and the mass media's effect on opinions, focusing on the influence of social interaction upon the phenomena of misperception found in the perceptions.

Accordingly, these explicit questions for inquiry are posed:

<Question 1> Does social interaction have influence on the perception of congruency of opinions?

<Question 2> Does social interaction have influence on the perception of distribution of general opinion within social system?

<Question 3> Does social interaction have influence on the perception of the mass media's effect upon opinions?

For answers to the questions, this thesis categorizes the subjects of study into four groups the balanced activist, the internal communicator, the external communicator, and the alienated. The categorization is founded on the characteristics of social interaction, an independent variable, differing in accordance to the degree and the object of interaction, which is measured by means of the applied method of network analysis.

The internal communicator is the person who interact more with those of the same opinion as his/hers than with those of different from his/hers, thus his/her objects of interaction are internally biased.

The external communicator is the person who interact more with those of the different opinion from his/hers than with those of the same as his/hers, thus his/her objects of interaction are externally biased.

The balanced activist is the person who maintains relationship with a large number of people and, at the same time, interact equally with those of the same as and different from his/her opinion thus keeping a balance of the objects of interaction.

The alienated is the person who, regardless of the objet t of interaction, shows low degree in interaction with others.

In addition, the dependent variables are defined as follows the perception of congruency of opinion climate is defined as the degree of interpersonal agreement on public issues within social system and, in terms of measurement, is conceptualized as the degree of score difference between one's own opinion on social issues and others', the smaller difference signifying a higher degree of congruency of the perceived opinion, the perception of opinion distribution is defined as the perception of the majority's and the minority's opinion within social system, and, in terms of measurement, the accuracy of opinion distribution and the level of pluralistic ignorance is conceptualized by comparing the actual opinion distribution to the personal perception of opinion distribution,' moreover, the perception of the mass media's effect on opinions is defined as the perception of the mass media's effect on one's own opinion of social issues and others' within social system and, in terms of measurement, is conceptualized as the difference between the perception of the mass media's effect on "me" and the perception of the effect on others.

On the basis of such conceptualization, the following hypotheses are established for testing.

(Hypothesis 1) The internal communicator will show a higher degree of the perception of congruency than the external communicator.

(Hypothesis 2-1) The ratio of persons perceiving the accurate distribution of opinion will be higher in the balanced activist group than in the alienated group.

(Hypothesis 2-2) In the internal communicator group, the ratio of the consistent pluralistic ignorant will be higher than that of the inconsistent pluralistic ignorant.

(Hypothesis 2-3) In the external communicator group, the ratio of the inconsistent pluralistic ignorant will be higher than that of the consistent pluralistic ignorant.

(Hypothesis 3) The internal communicator will show a lower degree of perceptual bias concerning the effect of the mass media than the external communicator.

To test these hypotheses, this thesis adapts the population instead of drawing a sample, in accord with the required measurement of the distribution of actual opinion within social system and with the applied method of network analysis in measuring social interaction. Thus, 115 political science majors at College of Social Sciences in Seoul National University are selected as study subjects qualifying as one "small social system," the place and unit from which social interaction originates. The students are required to fill in questionnaires on a public issue, i.e., Korean unification and the relevant issue of tourist business development in Mount Geum-gang. In real data analysis, 100 students among the respondents become the subjects of analysis.

The results of the data analysis corroborate (Hypothesis 1) of <Question 1>, (Hypothesis 2-1) of <Question 2>, (Hypothesis 3) of <Question 3>, and (Hypothesis 2-2); in other words, all the hypotheses prove to be correct except (Hypothesis 2-3).

These study results illustrate the difference in degree and aspect of the phenomena of misperception, which generate from the perception of opinion climate, in accordance to the characteristics of social interaction', consequently, this thesis concludes that social interaction influences the perception of opinion climate.

The conclusion illuminates the interpersonal relation within social system, the interpersonal exchange of opinions and viewpoints, and social interaction as experience-mediating "act" - factors which have been overlooked until now - as significant factors of the opinion climate perception in the process of opinion formation. It suggests that interpersonal communication as interpersonal act should be considered along with the problems of mass communication in the study of opinion climate perception as well as the process of opinion formation.

Key words: social interaction, opinion climate, pluralistic ignorance, the third person effect