Shelly Chaiken

Last updated
Shelly Chaiken
Born
Rochelle Lynne Chaiken

1949 (age 7374)
Alma mater University of Massachusetts Amherst
Scientific career
Fields Social psychology
Thesis The use of source versus message cues in persuasion  (1977)
Doctoral advisor Alice Eagly

Rochelle Lynne "Shelly" Chaiken (born 1949) is an American social psychologist. She first received her BS from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1971 for mathematics. She later earned her MS (in 1975) and her PhD (in 1978) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in social psychology. She was a professor of psychology at New York University, but is now retired. [1]

Chaiken is a member of many psychological organizations including the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the American Psychological Association (Fellow, Div. 8), and the American Psychological Society. [2]

Research

She completed work involving attitude, persuasion, and social cognition and is most well-known for the developing the heuristic-systematic model of information processing. Chaiken completed a study researching interracial contact. The study found that participant who were exposed to more white faces in a positive way, had a more negative view or increased prejudice toward black faces. Chaiken edited many psychological books including Attitude Research in the 21st Century: The Current State of Knowledge, and Dual-Process Theories in Social Psychology. Dual-Process Theories in Social Psychology conglomerates the theories of informational processing in an organized way, along with reviews and research of these theories. Much of her work involving persuasion has been helpful to conflict resolution centers and negotiations with their patients.

For her work on dual process theories of attitudes, on October 17, 2009 Chaiken was a co-recipient of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology's Scientific Impact Award, which "[h]onors the author(s) of a specific article or chapter that has proven highly influential over the last 25 years." [3]

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The heuristic-systematic model of information processing (HSM) is a widely recognized model by Shelly Chaiken that attempts to explain how people receive and process persuasive messages. The model states that individuals can process messages in one of two ways: heuristically or systematically. Whereas systematic processing entails careful and deliberative processing of a message, heuristic processing entails the use of simplifying decision rules or ‘heuristics’ to quickly assess the message content. The guiding belief with this model is that individuals are more apt to minimize their use of cognitive resources, thus affecting the intake and processing of messages. HSM predicts that processing type will influence the extent to which a person is persuaded or exhibits lasting attitude change. HSM is quite similar to the elaboration likelihood model, or ELM. Both models were predominantly developed in the early to mid-1980s and share many of the same concepts and ideas.

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References

  1. "Profile entry of Shelly Chaiken". Department of Psychology New York University. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  2. "Profile Shelly Chaiken". Social Psychology Network. 26 November 1999. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  3. "Scientific Impact Award Recipients". Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Archived from the original on 13 May 2009. Retrieved 5 August 2014.