L3.
Consumer Information Processing
Part 3. Attitudes and Persuasion
Overview
• Definition of the attitude and its role in consumer behavior
• Three components of attitudes
• Attitude change strategies associated with each attitude component
• The role of message source, appeal, and structure on persuasion
• Elaboration likelihood model of persuasion
Attitude
An enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual, and
cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of our environment.
The way one thinks, feels, and acts toward some aspect of one’s
environment.
Attitude: Hedonic vs. Utilitarian
Utilitarian: Aspects of a product which are
useful and practical.
These aspects don’t make you feel
pleasure or guilt.
Hedonic: Aspects of a product which are
pleasant and fun.
They are enjoyable and can even make you
feel guilty.
Attitude: Hedonic vs. Utilitarian
Attitude Components
Attitude Strength: The extent to which an attitude influences
decision making.
Attitude Certainty: The confidence and conviction a consumer
has towards their attitude.
Thoughtful consideration -> Attitude certainty -> Less processing, Strong attitude
ABC Model of Attitude Components
Affective: A consumer’s feelings or emotional reactions to an attitude
object
Behavioral: A consumer’s tendency to respond in a certain manner
toward an attitude object
Cognitive: A consumer’s beliefs about an attitude object
ABC Model of Attitude Components
ABC Model of Attitude Components
Cognitive: A consumer’s beliefs about an attitude object
Feature: What a product is.
Benefit: What a product does.
Nonevaluative: Factual beliefs.
Evaluative: Opinion-oriented beliefs.
ABC Model of Attitude Components
Affective: A consumer’s feelings or emotional reactions to an attitude object
Measuring Attitudes - Psychometrics
How would you measure liking of your gaming streams?
Psychometric: Use these scales when you need to measure something
non-behavioral (e.g., perceptions, attitudes, perceived likelihoods).
Gold standard for measures: Likert scales
How much do you enjoy watching my gaming streams? (1- Not at all, 7-
Very much)
Measuring Attitudes - Psychometrics
Measuring Attitudes – Behavioral
Behavioral: A consumer’s tendency to respond in a certain manner
toward an attitude object
• We can look at behaviors to estimate attitudes.
• If we are interested in consumers’ beliefs that our product is too
expensive, we could try lowering the price and measuring sales.
• Purchase volume?
ABC Model of Attitude Components
Which comes first: knowing, feeling or doing?
4 hierarchies explain the relative impact of A, B and C:
1. Standard learning hierarchy (high involvement)
2. Low-involvement hierarchy
3. Experiential hierarchy
4. Behavioral-learning hierarchy
14
Standard Learning Hierarchy (High Involvement)
A problem-solving process
Think: Extensive learning and Feel: Generate affect associated
Do
searching for product information with each belief
Low-involvement hierarchy
No strong preference for brand initially
Think: Limited thinking/knowledge Do Feel: more cognitions may then be added
Experiential Hierarchy
Act on our emotions
Feel Do Think: Selectively formed or
emphasized to justify behavior
Behavioral-Learning Hierarchy
Learning by doing
Do Feel Think
Why do people have attitudes?
1. Utilitarian function
2. Value-expressive function
3. Ego-defensive function
4. Knowledge function
Utilitarian function
Attitude can help consumers maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
We develop attitudes based on objective benefit.
Pleasure Pain
Tasty High calories
I like it! I do not like it!
-> Use pleasant stimuli to make people focus on pleasure/ benefit.
Value-expressive function
Attitude can help consumers express their core values, self-concept, and beliefs.
-> Link a product to consumers’ core values and identities to increase consumers’
attitudes toward the product.
Ego-defensive function
Attitude can help consumers protect themselves from threat/insecurities
Positive attitude Negative attitude
toward products restoring self-concept toward products threatening self-concept
Knowledge function
Attitudes are formed to help organize our understanding of the world,
guiding how we attend to, store, and retrieve information.
Attitude-based categorization may lead to over-generalization.
E.g., “Halo effect”
23
Change attitudes based on functions
“ I don’t like working out.” → “I like working out.”
1. Utilitarian function
2. Value-expressive function
3. Ego-defensive function
4. Knowledge function
Component Consistency
Affective, behavioral, and cognitive components tend to be consistent.
Cognitive Dissonance
Inconsistency among beliefs, feelings, and behavior.
“I quit smoking.”
“Smoking causes cancer.”
“That research has
problems.”
“I smoke sometimes.” “But my grandpa lived
to 95 smoking.”
Cognitive Dissonance
Participants were asked to work on a very dull task
They were paid to lie about the task to other students
$1 $20
After they finish, who would evaluate the task as more fun?
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)
Self-Perception Theory
People observe their own behavior, then infer their attitude according to the behavior
“I keep purchasing Colgate, I must like it!”
“I bought it because of the discount, so I don’t really like it.
“How much do you think
the car you selected
reflects your preferences?"
Sela, Berger, and Kim 2017
Attitude Change
Easy to change Compliance
Attitude formed to gain rewards or avoid punishment
Identification
Attitude formed to conform to another person’s or
group’s expectations.
Difficult to change Internalization
Attitude that is deeply seated in a part of your value
system
Attitude: Summary
• Attitude – An enduring organization of motivational, emotional,
perceptual, and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of
our environment.
• Vary on strength and certainty.
• Affective, Behavioral, Cognitive – 4 hierarchies
• Function: Utilitarian, Value-expressive, Ego-defensive, Knowledge
• Attitude change, cognitive dissonance
Persuasion
Often involves attempts to change cognition and affect with the goal of then
changing consumers’ behaviors.
31
Communications Model:
Who says what to whom, and where?
Source = “who”
Message = “what”
Medium = “where”
Recipient = “whom”
1. Source Factors
Source can be:
The CEO
A celebrity
A non-human endorser
…
Source characteristics:
Credibility
Attractiveness
1.1. Source Factors: Credibility
Expertise
Trustworthiness
Objectivity
Knowledge bias: source’s knowledge about a topic is not accurate
Reporting bias: source’s willingness to convey knowledge accurately is
questionable
Source Factors: Credibility
Ways to build credibility:
Real credible source
Appearance
Credible media
Source Factors: Credibility
Persuasion knowledge: “Personal knowledge about persuasion attempts that
consumers develop and use whenever they believe they are targets of
persuasion.”
Group 1:
Hear a salesperson’s flattery BEFORE the purchase decision LESS sincere
Group 2:
Hear a salesperson’s flattery AFTER the purchase decision MORE sincere
Campbell and Kirmani (2000), Isaac and Grayson (2017)
Source Factors: Credibility
But non-credible sources can be persuasive.
“The courts nowadays have too “Arguing against your own self interest” (from Walster et al.)
much power.”
vs.
“The courts nowadays need a lot
more power to keep crime under
control.”
Who can make them more persuasive? –
a convicted felon or a prosecutor?
1.2. Source factors: Attractiveness
What makes for an attractive source?
social status
physical appearance
personality
similarity
Source factors: Attractiveness
What does a physically attractive source do for the product?
“Halo effect”: We assume that persons who rank high on one dimension (e.g.,
beauty) excel on others (e.g., intelligence) as well.
Source factors: Attractiveness
Less pretty More pretty
High severity Low severity
The child’s house was The child’s house and
destroyed, and her parents family were not affected
had died as a result of a by the disaster.
tsunami.
Fisher and Ma (2014)
Source Factors
Source factors: Attractiveness
Less pretty More pretty Less pretty More pretty
High severity High severity Low severity Low severity
The child’s house was The child’s house was The child’s house and family The child’s house and
destroyed, and her parents destroyed, and her were not affected by the family were not affected
had died as a result of a parents had died as a disaster. by the disaster.
tsunami. result of a tsunami.
High empathy High empathy High empathy Low empathy
Source Factors Fisher and Ma (2014)
Source factors: Endorsers
Celebrities
Compared to “ordinary” faces, our brains pay more attention to famous faces.
The use of celebrities in marketing produced 9.4% more consumer readers.
Source factors: Endorsers
Celebrities
Celebrities can switch to the other brands.
Source factors: Endorsers
Celebrities
They may become deviated from a brand’s desired image.
Source factors: Endorsers
Non-human endorsers
No risk of scandals
Easy to change the characteristics
Source factors: Endorsers
Ordinary consumers
The product is made for the general public.
Easy to imagine the usage experience
2. Message Factors: Argument Construction
Argument construction
One-sided argument: discuss positive information only
Two-sided argument: discuss negative information in addition to
positive information
Message Factors: Argument Construction
When two-sided is best?
Educate about a new product.
Enhance credibility; reduce reporting bias.
Target a well-educated audience
Refutational arguments: discuss negatives and then dismiss them
E.g., Domino's® Pizza Turnaround
Message Factors: Types of Appeals
Rational appeals: Emotional appeals:
Claims that rely on argument strength Fear
- A sound cause for the effect claimed Sex
Humor
- Data or other evidence as proof
Sympathy
- A sound logic
Love
Sorrow
Other specific emotions that tug at the
heartstrings
How recipient, source and message factors interact
50
Elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
Theory that when people are interpreting messages, they will engage in different
depths of processing: High or low elaboration.
Elaboration: the extent to which a person thinks about the arguments in a message.
High elaboration
- Motivation (relevance, importance)
- Ability
Low elaboration
Elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
Elaboration: the extent to which a person thinks about the arguments in a message.
1. Central route: When consumers are motivated and able to systematically process the message
Strength of arguments determines the persuasive outcome
Leads to enduring attitudes
2. Peripheral route When consumers are not motivated or able to elaborate on a message.
Surface features of a message or its source determine the persuasive outcome
Leads to temporary attitudes that are susceptible to change
Central Route Triggers: Involvement
Experiment: Razor Ad
Manipulated Factors (Independent Variables):
Recipient: High vs. Low Involvement
Source: celebrity vs. non-celebrity endorser
Message: Strong (functional features) vs. weak (appearance) argument
Measured (Dependent Variable): attitude change
Petty & Cacioppo (1980)
Central Route Triggers: Involvement
Low Involvement
60
Attitude Change
50
40
30
20
10
0
Strong Argument Weak Argument
Celebrity Endorser Non-Celebrity Endorser
Central Route Triggers: Involvement
How do these findings
High Involvement help marketers?
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Strong Argument Weak Argument
Celebrity Endorser Non-Celebrity Endorser
Other Central Route Triggers
1. Involvement with product
Personal relevance
Brand loyalty
2. Involvement with ad
Humor
Complexity
3. Ability (momentary or lasting)
Degree of distraction
Amount of prior knowledge
Elaboration Likelihood Model: Summary
Persuasion can happen through one of two routes: central and peripheral.
- Central route when people have motivation and ability to think about message
- Peripheral when they do not
Which cues work to change attitudes may differ -- depending on which route
is in use.
- Central cues include argument strength and source expertise.
- Peripheral cues include superficial aspects of endorsers and number of arguments.
Attitude change via central route is more likely to stick (memorized) due to
more elaboration.
Activity: Deciphering Ads
1. Do you think the ad creators intended to take a
central or peripheral route to persuasion?
2. What is one feature of the ad that makes it clear
which route is being utilized?
59
60
61