The Psychology of Advertising by Bob M. Fennis & Wolfgang Stroebe

Author:Bob M. Fennis & Wolfgang Stroebe
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Behavioral Sciences
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2010-07-11T14:00:00+00:00

Assessing the intensity of processing

Petty, Cacioppo and their colleagues developed two strategies to evaluate the extent to which recipients of a message engage in message processing (Greenwald, 1968; Petty, Wells & Brock, 1976). As we mentioned earlier, one major theoretical contribution of the Ohio State researchers to the study of persuasion was the development of a measure of cognitive responses, namely the thought-listing technique. This technique can be used to assess the extent to which attitude change is based on systematic processing. If attitude change is due to systematic processing, then (1) recipients should have generated some thoughts favourable to the position advocated by the communicator; and (2) the relative favourability or unfavourability of these thoughts should be correlated with the amount of attitude change. (3) A favourability index (e.g. the ratio of favourable thoughts to total number of relevant thoughts) should act as a mediator of the impact of the manipulated variables on attitude change with systematic but not under heuristic processing.

The manipulation of argument quality provides an even more powerful tool for assessing the extent of systematic (central route) processing. Persuasive appeals containing strong arguments should stimulate mainly favourable thoughts in recipients who engage in systematic processing, and result in substantial attitude change. In contrast, weak arguments should trigger mainly negative thoughts and fail to result in attitude change. The more recipients are motivated and able to engage in systematic processing, the stronger should be the impact of the manipulation of argument quality. The combined use of an argument quality manipulation (as one of the independent measures) and thought-listing (as one of the dependent measure) should therefore provide a valid tool for diagnosing the extent to which individuals engage in systematic processing of the arguments contained in a communication.

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