Editing Vested interest (communication theory) (section)

===Immediacy===
Immediacy refers to an individual's perceived amount of time between an action and its resulting consequences.<ref name="Crano"/> Immediacy can be considered an extension of certainty, however, these two entities are completely separate. For instance, in our prison example, people in opposition to the construction of the prison in their neighborhood may have felt that the amount of time to build the prison to and the eventual housing of prisoners was not long enough to make an informed decision. They may also feel that it is only a matter of time before something negative happened to the local citizens as a result of having a prison nearby.

Immediacy refers to the apparent temporary lag between an attitudinally implicated action and its consequences. If the results of an attitude consistent action are thought to be immediate rather than delayed, the effects of stake, or vested interest, on attitude-behavior consistency will be more dramatic. In other words, if a person living near the prison in the previous example perceives the possibility of a jailbreak could occur at a much later time in life, he may act in manner that is not consistent. This is because the lack of immediate consequences reduces the perception of vested interest. Therefore, immediacy can help explain self-destructive behaviors.

Immediacy, in vested interest,  can also be thought of in terms of positive or negative consequence disassociated from a timeline.  Vested interest such as organ donation, for example, make life and death salient which brings about the concept of immediacy to decide not necessarily to act.<ref name="Siegel, et al.">{{cite journal |last1=Siegel |first1=Jason T. |last2=Alvaro |first2=Eusebio M. |last3=Lac |first3=Andrew |last4=Crano |first4=William D. |last5=Dominick |first5=Alexander |title=Intentions of Becoming a Living Organ Donor Among Hispanics: A Theory-Based Approach Exploring Differences Between Living and Nonliving Organ Donation |journal=Journal of Health Communication |date=8 February 2008 |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=80–99 |doi=10.1080/10810730701807142|pmid=18307137 |s2cid=1964668 }}</ref>  This is seen in a mechanism which allows people to agree to donate organs in the event of their death (i.e. drivers licenses).<ref name="Siegel, et al." />

Another example of immediacy is that of marketing companies who implement immediacy to encourage consumers to act or remain inactive. If what they market is something a person is highly vested in and the marketing firm has simultaneously created an immediate need, then they have done their job to get consumers to behave as they desired. This use of immediacy can be both helpful and harmful. Consumers who are not well versed in how marketing works may find themselves situations they did not wish to be in. However, consumers who are cognizant of how marketing works may find this very useful in how they do or do not expend their resources.