GLOSSARY
Attitude
An attitude is a learned disposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a person, an object, an idea, or an event.
Audience Analysis
A speaker analyzes an audience for demographics, dispositions and knowledge of the topic.
Beliefs
Beliefs are principles and are more durable than attitudes because beliefs are hinged to ideals and not issues.
Cognitive Dissonance
The psychological discomfort felt when a person is presented with two competing ideas or pieces of evidence.
Demographics
Demographics are the most recent statistical characteristics of a population.
Demographic Characteristics
Demographic characteristics are facts about the make-up of a population.
Demography
Demographics are literally a classification of the characteristics of the people.
Inference
Making an inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true.
Ordered category
An ordered category is a condition of logical or comprehensible arrangement among the separate elements of a group.
Paradigm
A paradigm is a pattern that describes distinct concepts or thoughts in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context.
Psychological Description
A psychological description is a description of the audience’s attitudes, beliefs, and values.
Quantitative Analysis
A quantitative analysis is the process of determining the value of a variable by examining its numerical, measurable characteristics.
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data.
Unacquainted-Audience Presentation
An unacquainted-audience presentation is a speech when you are completely unaware of your audience’s characteristics.
Uniqueness
Uniqueness occurs when a topic rises to the level of being exceptional in interest and knowledge to a given audience.
Variable
A variable is a characteristic of a unit being observed that may assume more than one of a set of values to which a numerical measure or a category from a classification can be assigned.
Value
A value is a guiding belief that regulates our attitudes.
Value Hierarchy
A value hierarchy is a person’s value structure placed in relationship to a given value set.