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1 – 10 of over 2000This paper aims to clarify the effect of attitudinal ambivalence on resistance to anti-smoking persuasion through information processing styles. It was hypothesized that a high…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to clarify the effect of attitudinal ambivalence on resistance to anti-smoking persuasion through information processing styles. It was hypothesized that a high smoker’s ambivalence, induced by an anti-smoking persuasive message, triggers among smokers both a reflective and a non-reflective information processing. In turn, both the information processing styles were supposed to be predictors of the resistance to anti-smoking persuasion.
Design/methodology/approach
An experiment and a survey were conducted on a random sample of 347 smokers in this regard.
Findings
The findings indicated that smokers feel ambivalent toward anti-smoking messages in print ads and tend to process them both analytically and superficially. Also, it seems that only the analytical processing triggers resistance to anti-smoking persuasion.
Originality/value
The author reports on the importance of attitudinal ambivalence and information processing in the resistance to anti-smoking persuasion process. The paper should be of interest to readers in the areas of health communication and social marketing. This work seems to be important to the extent that few works have highlighted the causal and linear effect of a persuasive anti-smoking message on smokers’ ambivalence, information processing and resistance to persuasion. The findings in this paper seem interesting insofar, as they show the importance of the negative emotional appeal in the ambivalence, analytical information processing and resistance triggering.
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Hsuan-Yi Chou and Tuan-Yu Wang
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of brand strategies and spokesperson expertise on consumer responses to hypermarket private-label products by combining…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of brand strategies and spokesperson expertise on consumer responses to hypermarket private-label products by combining concepts from consumer attitude change, resistance to persuasion and construal level theory (CLT).
Design/methodology/approach
Two experiments were conducted to test the propositions.
Findings
Consumers perceived the low-price (low-quality) characteristic of private-label products as a high-level (low-level) construal consideration when forming purchase decisions. Product relevance negatively affected consumers’ perceived product distance. Compared with store brands, separate brands enhanced consumer product attitudes and purchase intentions. Brand strategies and product distance affected consumer message-processing mindset (i.e. resistant to persuasion or open to persuasion) when processing advertisements, ultimately moderating the effect of spokesperson expertise.
Practical implications
The findings are useful for hypermarkets seeking to implement brand strategies and select spokespersons for private-label products. Additionally, the findings show that advertisers should design advertising elements to match consumers’ construal approaches to product-related information.
Originality/value
This study contrasts two common hypermarket brand strategies, identifies the construal levels corresponding to the dual roles of private-label products and expands CLT dimensions. Additionally, the results bridge two research approaches (persuasion and resistance to persuasion) and demonstrate the pivotal influence of brand strategies. The findings also advance understanding of the effects of spokesperson expertise and contribute to resistance theory by showing how to effectively reduce attitude certainty after resistance to persuasion.
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Steffi De Jans, Liselot Hudders and Veroline Cauberghe
This study aims to examine adolescents’ (between 12 and 18 years) perceptions of their knowledge and skills related to advertising (i.e. dispositional advertising literacy). More…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine adolescents’ (between 12 and 18 years) perceptions of their knowledge and skills related to advertising (i.e. dispositional advertising literacy). More specifically, adolescents’ beliefs about their recognition and understanding of advertising (cognitive facet), their emotional reaction to advertising (affective facet) and their moral evaluation of advertising (moral facet) were investigated together with their beliefs about the way they resist advertising.
Design/methodology/approach
A large-scale survey was conducted, taking information from 2,602 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years.
Findings
The findings show that adolescents believe they can recognize advertising reasonably well and have a moderate understanding of it. They tend to be negative toward advertising, perceive it as an unfair practice and claim to resist it strongly. In addition, adolescents’ self-reported moral and affective advertising literacy positively affect advertising resistance. Adolescents’ cognitive advertising literacy increases with the number of different media device types owned, and cognitive and moral advertising literacy increase with age.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to examine adolescents’ beliefs about their dispositional advertising literacy. Most previous studies examined advertising literacy among young children (under 12 years) or adults after exposure to a specific advertising format (i.e. situational advertising literacy), while this study focuses on adolescents’ self-reported levels of cognitive, moral and affective dispositional advertising literacy. In addition, the focus on resistance strategies to examine how adolescents resist advertising is unique.
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Nancy H. Brinson, Laura L. Lemon, Coral Bender and Annika Fetzer Graham
The purpose of this study is to examine whether consumers are able to critically evaluate promotional content presented by a podcast host with whom they have a parasocial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine whether consumers are able to critically evaluate promotional content presented by a podcast host with whom they have a parasocial relationship, and how this interaction impacts the listeners’ behavioral intentions toward the advertised brand.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a blended theoretical foundation of Persuasion Knowledge Model and Parasocial Interaction theory, this between subjects’ experimental study examined the effects of a traditional advertisement versus a host-read promotional message for the same brand in a highly rated podcast among listeners who reported varying levels of a parasocial relationship (PSR) with the host.
Findings
Results from a moderated mediation analysis suggest that a PSR with the podcast host decreased evaluative persuasion knowledge about the promotional message presented, which indirectly enhanced respondents’ intention to seek more information about the promoted brand.
Originality/value
This study extends the limited research examining the effects of promotional messaging delivered by podcast hosts with whom audiences have a PSR, and how this interaction impacts the listeners’ behavioral intentions. Theoretical contributions and practical implications for podcast marketers are also discussed.
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Philippe Odou and Pauline de Pechpeyrou
The purpose of this paper is to offer a new perspective on resistance and anti‐consumption literature by relating it to consumer cynicism.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer a new perspective on resistance and anti‐consumption literature by relating it to consumer cynicism.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proceeds to a conceptual deconstruction of consumer cynicism by comparing the contemporary meaning of the term with the original signification of cynicism, contrasting the psychological approach with the philosophical one. This perspective sheds light on disparate forms of consumer cynicism found in previous research.
Findings
Four different figures of consumption related to cynicism were distinguished in this paper. Defensive cynicism and offensive cynicism are psychological tools used to neutralize persuasion attempts or divert marketing techniques. Subversive cynicism and ethical cynicism, which are reminiscences of cynicism in Ancient Greece, challenge the consumerist ideology and even propose an alternative ethics.
Originality/value
Prior research on consumer cynicism has focused on the defensive psychological dimension of the concept, limiting it to a coping device for deceived consumers. Three other facets have been explored in this paper and provide a broader framework that can account for the disparate manifestations observed in the resistance and anti‐consumption literature. This new conceptualization of consumer cynicism could also explain why consumers' disappointment with private consumption does not always lead to public involvement.
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Peter Schaab, Kristian Beckers and Sebastian Pape
This paper aims to outline strategies for defence against social engineering that are missing in the current best practices of information technology (IT) security. Reason for the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to outline strategies for defence against social engineering that are missing in the current best practices of information technology (IT) security. Reason for the incomplete training techniques in IT security is the interdisciplinary of the field. Social engineering is focusing on exploiting human behaviour, and this is not sufficiently addressed in IT security. Instead, most defence strategies are devised by IT security experts with a background in information systems rather than human behaviour. The authors aim to outline this gap and point out strategies to fill the gaps.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a literature review from viewpoint IT security and viewpoint of social psychology. In addition, they mapped the results to outline gaps and analysed how these gaps could be filled using established methods from social psychology and discussed the findings.
Findings
The authors analysed gaps in social engineering defences and mapped them to underlying psychological principles of social engineering attacks, for example, social proof. Furthermore, the authors discuss which type of countermeasure proposed in social psychology should be applied to counteract which principle. The authors derived two training strategies from these results that go beyond the state-of-the-art trainings in IT security and allow security professionals to raise companies’ bars against social engineering attacks.
Originality/value
The training strategies outline how interdisciplinary research between computer science and social psychology can lead to a more complete defence against social engineering by providing reference points for researchers and IT security professionals with advice on how to improve training.
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Stefan F. Bernritter, Iris van Ooijen and Barbara C.N. Müller
This paper aims to demonstrate that self-persuasion can be used as a marketing technique to increase consumers’ generosity and that the efficacy of this approach is dependent on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate that self-persuasion can be used as a marketing technique to increase consumers’ generosity and that the efficacy of this approach is dependent on consumers’ involvement with target behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
An experimental field-study was conducted to investigate the effects of self-persuasion versus direct persuasion attempts versus no persuasion attempts on consumers’ tipping behavior in a lunchroom. Additionally, in a lab experiment, the moderating role of involvement on self-persuasion versus direct persuasion was tested.
Findings
The results reveal that self-persuasion is more effective than direct persuasion attempts or no persuasive messages in increasing consumers’ generosity. This is moderated by consumers’ involvement with the target behavior. For consumers with high involvement, self-persuasion is more effective than direct persuasion, while no differences were found for consumers with moderate or low involvement.
Practical implications
The scope of self-persuasion is not limited to the inhibition of undesired behavior, but it also extends to the facilitation of desired behavior, which considerably broadens the scope of this technique. Self-persuasion might be used as a marketing technique to influence consumers’ purchase behavior. This might be particularly viable in situations in which consumers feel high involvement with products or behavior.
Originality/value
Recently, research in health psychology demonstrated that self-persuasion is a very effective way of inhibiting undesired, addictive behavior and being more successful than direct persuasion. Yet, insufficient knowledge is available about the efficacy of self-persuasion with regard to promoting other target behaviors. In particular, its potential as a marketing technique to influence consumers’ behavior and its boundary conditions are still understudied.
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Michael Habersam, Martin Piber and Matti Skoog
This study aims to answer the research question of how a calculative regime for public universities is implemented, how and under which conditions its symbolic use emerges and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to answer the research question of how a calculative regime for public universities is implemented, how and under which conditions its symbolic use emerges and what kind of unintended consequences occur over time.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical material presented in the paper derives methodically from a longitudinal qualitative research approach analyzing higher education systems (HES)-reforms in Austria. To better understand the consequences of the organizational changes in line with the new legal framework, 2 series of qualitative interviews in 2011/2012 and 2016/2017 on the field level and the organizational level were conducted.
Findings
Identifying two enabling consequences from the tactical behaviors of resistance and symbolic use, i.e. new processes of communication and horizontal network building, allows for theory-building with a focus on the dynamics how accounting begins, then next becomes an established infrastructure, is then destabilized and re-elaborated before it becomes, again, an infrastructure which is different from before.
Research limitations/implications
Although the findings are based on a national empirical context, they are linked to the international discourse on HES in transition and the role of calculative regimes including performance measurement and management attitudes and instruments. They are relevant for an international research community open-minded toward differentiated case studies in a longitudinal perspective on HES-reforms.
Practical implications
When reflecting on their own specific settings governing bodies and practitioners managing the transition of HES may find insights from longitudinal case studies inspiring. The dynamics initiated by new calculative regimes installed need a sensitive framework to handle dissent, resistance, tactical behaviors and changes in power relations between the field level and the organizational level.
Originality/value
This is a unique longitudinal case study of the Austrian HES and its public universities in transition.
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Youngjee Ko, Hanyoung Kim, Youngji Seo, Jeong-Yeob Han, Hye Jin Yoon, Jongmin Lee and Ja Kyung Seo
Successful social marketing campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccination for the unvaccinated relies on increasing positive reactions but also reducing negative responses to…
Abstract
Purpose
Successful social marketing campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccination for the unvaccinated relies on increasing positive reactions but also reducing negative responses to persuasive messages. This study aims to investigate the relative effects of narrative vs non-narrative public service announcements (PSAs) promoting COVID-19 vaccination on both positive and negative reactions. Using social media as a tool for disseminating marketing campaigns provides a great opportunity to examine the effectiveness of narrative PSAs on vaccination intention, especially among unvaccinated young adults, who were the target audience of the social marketing. This study explores the role of empathy and psychological reactance as underlying mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach
An experiment involving unvaccinated young adults was conducted with a one-factor, two-condition (message type: narrative vs non-narrative) design.
Findings
Results indicated that the narrative (vs non-narrative) PSAs led to greater empathy. While no direct effects of message type emerged on psychological reactance or vaccination intention, results of a serial multi-mediator model confirmed that empathy and psychological reactance mediated the effects of message type on vaccination intention.
Originality/value
The study extends the understanding of narrative persuasion by examining an underlying mechanism behind narrative persuasion in a COVID-19 PSA. This study provides empirical evidence of the important role of empathy in processing narrative PSAs. Moreover, the current study expands narrative persuasion’s applicability to COVID-19 vaccination intervention messages for unvaccinated young adults, highlighting the effectiveness of narrative persuasion as a social marketing communication tool.
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Seyed Mehdi Sharifi, Mohammad Reza Jalilvand and Mohammad Reza Shakoorian Fard
The importance of effective public messages has been widely recognized during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In particular, the role of news items and…
Abstract
Purpose
The importance of effective public messages has been widely recognized during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In particular, the role of news items and interpersonal conversations for the acceptance of public health measures has been highlighted. The authors propose a conceptual model based on the existing literature on how to measure the degree of persuasion of news narratives in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopted a whole population approach, where the unit of analysis was the population of the media news about the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors selected a sample to develop and test their conceptual model. The sample size was n = 248. The questionnaire was distributed online using a non-probability convenience sampling plan. The authors used a pre-post pseudo-experimental design. Respondents answered questions about their attitude toward the COVID-19 pandemic. After watching a narrative news report on the same subject, they then answered questions designed to measure changes in their attitude. A structural equation model, the Sobel test and a paired samples t-test were used to test hypotheses.
Findings
The results showed that there is a significant relationship between narrative with transportation and empathy. There was also a positive and significant relationship between transportation and empathy with attitude and interpersonal talk. The relationship between transportation and self-referencing was also supported. Further, transportation and attitude mediated the relationships between narrative and interpersonal talk, self-referencing as well as empathy. A paired samples t-test revealed that attitudes were changed or reinforced before and after watching the narrative news report.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by identifying the outcomes of narrative persuasion during public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
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