The Overkill Effect of Corrective Advertising

THE OVERKILL EFFECT OF CORRECTIVE ADVERTISING: AN HEIDERIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE INFLUENCE OF CORRECTIVE ADVERTISEMENT SPONSORSHIP ON COGNITIVE RESPONSES TOWARD THE COMPANY Abstract From Heider's Balance Theory, it was hypothesized that the effects of corrective advertising Interactively Jepend on who sponsors the corrective advertisement and on the audience's generalized attitude toward business and advertising. Subjects who held either favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward business and advertising were exposed to an authentic but unfamiliar corrective advertisement which was sponsored by either the FTC, or the company, or an unidentified source. The results supported the hypotheses. Persons unfavorable toward business generated more negatively loaded cognitive responses toward the company when the corrective advertisement was FTC sponsored than when It was company sponsored. The opposite pattern occurred when the subjects were favorable toward business and advertising. Introduction Upon judging an advertising practice as deceptive, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may simply require the discontinuance of the alleged deceptive advertising, but sometimes it may even require that the deceiver actively engage In corrective advertising to negate the lingering carryover effects of misinformation. (For a good review of the FTC's injunctlve power and of the evolution of corrective advertising, see Scammon & Semenick 1982.) The recent empirical research on the effectiveness of corrective advertising has largely been directed at determining the conditions under which exposure to corrective advertising sufficiently reduces the strength iif consumers' beliefs in the deceptive claim (the target lielief), while not affecting other beliefs (the riontarget beliefs) about the product ( c f . , Mlzerski, Allison, & Calvert 1980). However, there is a possible overkill effect of corrective advertising which is understandably of critical concern to the company at fault—namely, the deleterious effect of the corrective advertising on the L-ompany's own image. This issue is also of import to the FTC, for the purpose of FTC-ordered corrective .idvertising is to reduce the target beliefs, not to destroy a company's image. Fear of causing unnecessary damage to the company and of violating the First Amendment may be reasons why the FTC has generally been very conservative in handing down corrective advertising orders (Hunt 1977; Scammon & Semenik 1982). Several researchers have examined the effects of corrective advertising on the company's image. A national field survey conducted by Armstrong, Franke, .ind Russ (1982) showed that Warner Lambert's image decreased after the corrective Listerine campaign. But a more common finding of experimental research is that N'ote. from This project was supported by a research grant the California State University Foundation, , (425907000), Special thanks goes to Marilyn Lammers, y Hennessey, and Mike Bessolo for their comments and assistance in this research project. Address correspondence to H. Bruce Lammers, Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, California State University, Northridge, Northridge, CA 91330. the company's image is, by and large, unaffected by the corrective advertising (Hunt 1972 ; Kassarjlan, Carlson, & Rosin 1975; Mizerski, Allison, & Calvert 1980; Semenik 1980). Dyer and Kuehl (1974), however, reported intriguing evidence that an FTC-sponsored corrective advertisement relative to a company-sponsored corrective advertisement, enhanced the perceived trustworthiness of the company, at least for high strength messages. There is, then, an empirical basis for suspecting that that the sponsorship of a corrective advertisement (e.g., FTC VS. company-Sponsorship) may have differential effects on a company's image. Moreover, it is tbe contention of the present study that these effects, some of which may appear to be counterintuitive, can be parsimoniously couched in Heider's Balance Theory (Heider 1958). According to Balance Theory, persons are motivated to achieve balance among their cognitions. (For a good account of the revived interest ln cognitive consistency motivation, see Wicklund & Frey 1981.) In the present context, an Heiderian analysis would lead to the projections illustrated in Figure 1. The upcoming interpretation of Figure 1 presumes that attitudes toward business and advertising tend to be inversely related to the attitudes toward those government agencies (e.g., the FTC) which regulate business and advertising practices. This presumption is not without empirical merit, for in a number of questionnaires used to measure attitudes toward business and advertising, items which address the degree to which business and advertising should be government-regulated more often than not receive high factor loadings in the inverse direction (Joseph & Cook 1981). Figure 1 shows that the effect of FTCversus company-sponsorship of a corrective advertisement may depend on the consumer's generalized attitude toward business and advertising practices. For example, when consumers who hold negative attitudes toward business and advertising are exposed to a corrective message in which a company sponsors a negative statement about itself (i.e., a company-sponsored corrective advertisement), imbalanced cognitions exist. To achieve balance, the attitude toward the company may become relatively more favorable. If, however, the FTC had sponsored the corrective message, those same consumers who held unfavorable attitudes toward business and advertising (or, favorable attitudes toward the FTC) should become relatively less favorable toward the company in order to maintain or achieve a balanced set of cognitions. To say it another way, if someone 1 like (the FTC) says something bad (in an FTC-sponsored corrective advertisement) about an object (a business), 1 should dislike that "object," too. To complete the picture, the remainder of Figure I shows that a company's resultant image should be relatively unfavorable when persons who hold positive attitudes toward business and advertising are exposed to company-sponsored rather than FTC-sponsored corrective advertising. The primary purpose of the present study was tc test this Balance Theory interaction hypothesis concerning the differential effects of FTCversus company-sponsorship of corrective advertising on company 426 image. A second purpose was to demonstrate the feasibility of employing cognitive response measurement in this type of investigation. Gauging the quantity and quality of cognitive response output has become a useful and celebrated method of monitoring cognitive processing (Kassarjian 1982; Lammers 1985; Lutz & Swasy 1977; Petty, Ostrom, & Brock 1981; Sawyer & Ward 1979; Wright 1980). It is usually argued that these cognitive responses serve as mediators of attitude formation and change (Belch 1982; Olson, Toy, Ä Dover 1982; Toy 1982). Given the importance attached to the role of cognitive responses in Che attitude formation and change process, it was felt that the measurement of cognitive response activity would be a worthy barometer of the subjects' cognitive image of the company. Method Subjects and Design The experimental design was a 3 x 2 factorial with sponsorship (FTC vs. company vs. control) and generalized attitudes toward business and advertising (favorable vs. unfavorable) as the between-suhjects factors. One hundred and ten undergraduates in a large west coast university volunteered to serve as subjects in a study on "attitudes toward advertisements." The use of students as subjects necessarily limits the generalizeabiiity of the research findings. On the other hand, the use of such homogeneous samples enhances the internal validity of the experiment (Sawyer; Worthing, & Sednak 1979). Civen that there must be a tradeoff between internal and external validity, and given the purpose of the present experiment, internal validity considerations were deemed more important (Berkowitz & Donnerstein 1982; Calder, Phillips, 4 Tybout 1982). Procedure The experimenter, a male graduate student, explained to the subjects that he was conducting the study as part of the requirements for one of his graduate courses in marketing.The subjects, who were run in groups of 20 to 30, were then given booklets containing instructions, a corrective advertisement, and a questionnaire. The subjects were instructed in the booklet to "examine on the next page an advertisement that had appeared in a Spring, 1978, issue of Newsweek magazine." After examining the advertisements, the subjects were then asked to complete a set of questions comprising the dependent and ancillary measures. Upon completion of the questionnaire, the subjects were debriefed and thanked for their participation. In the debriefing, none of the subjects successfully guessed the purpose or hypotheses of the experiment. This is not altogether surprising given that a between-subjects design was employed in the present study. headline "NOTICE." Aside from the headings, all three advertisements were identical. Ceneralized Attitudes Toward Business and Advertising Ceneralized attitudes coward business and advertising were assessed by a series of nineteen items whicl¡ appeared at the tail-end of the questionnaire. These nineteen items, presented in Table 1, were adapted from Joseph and Cook (1981), Larkin (1977), and Reid and Soley (1982). Subjects responded to the items on 9-point, Likert-type scales. An advantage of using a postrather than a preexperimental measure of generalized attitudes toward business is that both the testing main effect and the testing X treatment interaction effect on the primary dependent measures can be eliminated as contaminators of internal validity (Campbell & Stanley I9b9; Churchill 1983). However, certain safeguards were taken to assure that the experimental manipulation (sponsorship of the correctiva advertisement) did not differentially affect responses to the attitudes Coward business and advertising items. First, Che generalized attitudes toward business and advertising items were the very last items on the questionnaire, thus allowing for a decrease in the treatment saliency. Second, immediately preceding these items was a 34-item Need for Cognition scale (Cacioppo & Petty 1982). The Need for Cognition scale acCed as a "filler-distractor" between the primary dependent measures and the general attitudes toward business and advertising measures. Third, and most importantly, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on the attitudes toward business and advertising with Sponsor as the independent variable. The ANOVA clearly showed that the experimental treatment did not differentially affect generalized attitudes toward business [£(2,104) < 1.00]. Since Che experimental manipulations did noC affect responses to the attitudes toward business and advertising items, a postclassification of subjects is equivalent to a preclassification of subjects, provided that a relative index such as the median is used to split subjects into groups. Factor analysis. A principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was performed on subjects' responses to the nineteen items. The resulcs, presented in Table I, revealed a dominant factor which accounted for 40.2% of the variance (eigen value = 4.70). This factor enjoyed loadings of greater Chan .AO on Che five items asterisked in Table 1. Factor scores based on these five items were computed for each subject. A median split of Che factor scores provided for the classification of subjects as being relatively favorable or unfavorable to business practices. Company Image Company image was assessed by measures and scaled perceptions. cognitive response Manipulation of Sponsor The sponsor of the corrective advertisement was manipulated by randomly administering three versions of a corrective advertisement for the specifics of the STP Corporation. (For a good rundown on the STP corrective advertisement case, see Belch, Belch, Settle, & DeLucchi 1981 ; Scammon & Semenik 1982; and Tyebjee 1982). One third of the subjects were randomly selected to receive Che FTC-sponsored advertisemenC which contained the bold heading, "FTC NOTICE." This version was, in fact, the original corrective advertisement that had appeared in Newsweek more than four years prior to this experiment. Another third of the subjects were randomly assigned to receive the STP-sponsored advertisement which contained the bold heading, "STP NOTICE." Finally, a third of the subjects were randomly assigned to the Control condition and received an advertisement which simply had Che 427 Cognitive Response. Cognitive responses were collecced by using a thought-listing procedure adapted from cognitive response research (Petty, Wells, & Brock 1976; Lammers & Becker 1980). Cacioppo (1982) and Cacioppo and Petty (1981) have amassed considerable evidence linking cognitive response activity (as measured by simple self-report and thoughc-listing mechods) and psychophysiological activity (e.g., interhemispheric distribution of alpha abundance over the parietal lobes). They concluded that the simpler thoughc-listing method for measuring cognitive responses has sufficient construct validity to warrant its use over more costly and complex methods. In the present study, cognitive response measures were taken immediately after subjects had examined the stimulus corrective message. They were asked Co "Please list below any thoughts, ideas, or feelings you may have ibcut the material on the preceding page. Don't worry ibniit spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc." A blank 11', I- was provided for the subjects to list their ^ ^lg[litive responses. After tbe data collection pbase of cbe experiment had been completed, two research ¿issistants (undergraduates) blind to tbe experimental purpose and design classified tbe cognitive responses into five categories: a) unfavorable toward tbe STP Company (company-negative cognitive responses), b) lavorable toward the STP Company (company-positive cognitive responses), c) unfavorable toward tbe FTC (FTC-negative cognitive responses), d) favorable toward Che FTC (FTC-positive cognitive responses), and e) irrelevant/neutral cognitive responses. The concordance between tbe two judges was .83. The few disagreements were resolved througb their own discussions. Since over 'JO percent of the cognitive responses were classified as being directed at the company, only those cognitive responses will be discussed further. Scaled Perceptions. In addition to assessing company image via cognitive responses toward the company, company image was also measured in a more traditional manner by baving subjects "evaluate tbe STP Corporation" on a set of ten, lO-point self-rating scales. The ten Items, ln order of tbeir appearance on tbe questionnaire, were: Unreliable-Reliable, Dishonest-Honest, Untrustworthy-Trustworthy, Bad-Good, Weak-Strong, Passive-Active, Slow-Fast, Poor-Rich, Selfish-Generous, and Despicable-Lovable. A principal components factor analysis of tbose ten items yielded cwo factors. The first factor, hereafter referred to as Che evaluative dimension, accounted for 77.7 percent of Lbe common variance. The Items wbich loaded most lieavily on tbis dimension were: Reliable, Honest, Trustworthy, Good, Generous, and Lovable. Tbe second factor, bereafter referred to as tbe activity-potency dimension, accounted for 22.3 percent of the common variance. Tbe items wbich loaded most beavily on tbis second dimension were: Strong, Active, Fast, and Rieb. The rotated factor matrix, communallties, and eigen values are shown in Table 2. It is extremely encouraging to see the similarity between tbe bipolar structure of the present company Image scale and the findings of social-environmental psychologists who contend that affect is bipolar and accounted for by tbe factors of pleasure-displeasure and degree of arousal (Russell 1979, 1980). These two factors once enjoyed the company of a third factor, dominance (Russell & Mebrabian 1976), but that third factor has been relegated to a less dominant role in the structure of affect (Russell & Pratt 1980). Both factors of tbe present study were retained and formed the base for subsequent analyses of company image. Two factor scores, one for each dimension, were computed for each subject by using tbe complete estimation method shown below in Formula I (Kim & Mueller 1978; Sbeth & Tigert 1977): (1) = S J=l wbere: t, = factor score i fsc. = factor score coefficient for variable j and ^ factor i z = standardized value on variable j n - total number of j variables, here n = 10. FTC Image Lmage of tbe FTC was measured by having subjects rate cbe FTC on tbe same ten scales used to assess company image. A factor analysis of these items again produced a bipolar structure virtually Identical to the factor analysis on the company image scale in Table 2. Tbus, two complete estimation factors scores for image of the FTC were computed for eacb subject. It will be recalled tbat cognitive responses directed at the FTC had also been measured, but they were so few in number tbat they were not subjected to further analysis. Other Measures Strength of belief in tbe claim that STP reduced oil consumption, perceived appropriateness of tbe fine on STP, and prior familiarity witb tbe advertisement were assessed on ten-point self-rating scales. Recent brand usage was measured by an open-ended question which asked "Wben was the last time you used STf oil additive?" Results The data were subjected to 3 it 2 analyses of variance (ANOVAs) witb sponsor (FTC vs. company vs. control) and generalized attitudes toward business and advertising (favorable vs. unfavorable) as the between-subjects factors. Internal analyses of the significant interaction effects were performed witb Duncan's New Multiple Range Tests (Kirk 1968). Company Image Cognitive Response. A significant interaction effect was found on the generation of company-negative cognitive responses, f^(2,104) = 3.67, £ < .029. Tbe pattern of tbe interaction means, shown in Figure 2, Is consistent with the hypothesis of tbe present experiment. Tbe internal analysis of this pattern showed that the company-sponsored corrective message significantly inbibited the generation of company-negative cognitive responses for those wbo held unfavorable attitudes toward business and advertising ^ ^ o m an " ^'^^ ^^' 4 F T C " '•^^' ^ '^ ' ° ^ ' ^^^ control group'^mean of 1.53 differed from neltber 0.77 nor 1.85). Furthermore, for persons who held more favorable attitudes toward business and advertising, tbe FTC-sponsored corrective advertisement tended to have the strongest inhibitory influence on the generation of company-negative cognitive responses (HpTr ^ '^^^ '^^' M , = 1.83, 1^ < .10; the company sponsored mean of 15?? "differed from neither 0.92 nor 1.83). No significant effects were found in the analysis of the positive cognitive responses directed at the company (all Xs < 2.63, Grand H = 0.35). Scaled perceptions. A significant main effect of generalized attitudes toward business and advertising on the evaluative dimension factor scores simply showed that those witb favorable attitudes gave the company more positive ratings tban did tbose persons holding unfavorable attitudes toward business and advertising (M ^^ = -.388 vs. M , = .253, F(l,104) = 12.21, £~< .001). Generalized attitudes toward business and advertising did not, however, significantly affect the activity-potency ratings of the company (M = -.099 vs. M = .067, £(1,104 < 1.00). SponsörsR^p of the corrective advertisement, eitber alone or in interaction, bad no statistically significant effect on scaled company image perceptions. FTC Image Subjects who held favorable, relative to unfavorable, attitudes toward business and advertising gave tbe FTC higher ratings on tbe activity-potency dimension = .189 vs. M = -.319, F(l,104) = 4.i3, —fav_,, ,, —uniav , , , ,^— , , * £ < .05). Message sponsorship also affected ratings of the FTC on this dimension. In specific, tbe FTC received significantly higber scores on this dimension when tbe corrective advertisement was company-sponsored (H = .40) than when the corrective advertisement was FTC-sponsored (M^ •• -.14) or unsponsored 423 (M Qjjp^Q^ = - . 5 2 ) , F(2,104) - 4.43, £ < .02. No other eïfects on FTC image were statistically significant. had been forsaken for external validity. But the combined picture provided by a laboratory experiment and a field experiment should prove to be most instructive. Other Measures Despite the caveat on generalizing the results of this study, it is all but impossible to resist the temptation to dwell at least briefly on the implications of the results for strategic marketing and public policy. Foremost is the counterintuitive suggestion that FTC-sponsored corrective advertisements should not be directed at target markets known for their hostility toward business and advertising. Company-sponsored corrective advertisements stand to fare better in such markets. (This realistically assumes, of course, that no damage to the company's image is desired by the FTC.) Conversely, in friendly markets (those which evidence favorable attitudes toward business and advertising), company-sponsored corrective advertisements run the risk of producing an overkill effect on the company's image. In the friendlier markets, FTC-sponsored corrective advertisements are preferable to company-sponsored ones. Subjects with favorable attitudes toward business and advertising, relative to those with unfavorable attitudes, showed a tendency to more readily believe the STP claim of reduced oil consumption. (fl = 3.54 vs. M j ^ = 2.76, £(1,104) = 2.88, £ < .091)^." No other E r e c t s on this variable approached significance. No significant effects were found in the perceived appropriateness of the fine, recency of brand usage, nor on familiarity with the corrective advertisement. It is noteworthy that the low grand mean of the advertisement familiarity measure (H = 2.07) indicated that subjects were very unfamiliar with the advertisement. Discussion The present study showed that FTCversus company-sponsorship of corrective advertising can have differential effects on a company's image, but the direction of the effects depends on an audience factor. Specifically, the cognitive response results indicated that when the audience held unfavorable attitudes toward business and advertising, a company-sponsored corrective advertisement significantly decreased the generation of negative cognitive responses directed at the company. But for those who held favorable attitudes toward business and advertising, it was the FTC-sponsored corrective advertisement which most effectively inhibited negative cognitive responses directed toward the company. Finally, it is also Important to keep a reasonable perspective on the many factors which may moderate the effects of the corrective advertising. This experiment isolated only two from the flock—sponsorship (a sourcü factor) and generalized attitude toward business and advertising (an audience factor). Figure 1 Hypothesized Interaction Effect of Corrective Advertising on Company Image Generalized Attitude Toward Business A Advertising Interestingly, a comparable interaction effect was not found on positive cognitive responses. A viable explanation is that dominant cognitive responses tend to be more sensitive to treatment effects than nondominant cognitive responses (Lämmers 1982; Petty, Wells, & Brock 1976). Since the negative cognitive responses in the present study exceeded positive cognitive response generation (M = 1.37 vs. M = 0.35, p < .05) it would be reasonaBle to expect "flw significant effects on the less dominant (positive) cognitive responses. Sponsor Direction of Ad of of Assertion Assertion FTC Resultant Image of Target (Company) Target (-:1 (~) Company (+) Positive Company (+]1 (-) Company (+) Negative Favorable FTC In the same vein, main effects were found on the evaluative and activity/potency scaled perceptions of the company and of the FTC. These main effects alone had little bearing on the hypotheses of the present study and were largely unsurprising and uninteresting. The absence of an interaction effect on these scaled perceptions highlights a point made by others who have also noted less than a perfect degree of correspondence between cognitive response and "traditional" attitude measures (Lammers, Leibowitz, Seymour, & Hennessey 1983; Swinyard 1981 ; Wright 1974); namely, important effects and theoretical implications may be overlooked by using only the traditional measures of attitudes. (+) (-) Company (-) Negative Company (-) (-) Company (-) Positive Unfavorable Table 2 Principal Components factor Analysis of Company Image perceptions (VARIMAX Rotation with Kaiser Normalization) Factor 1: Generalizations based on the findings of the present study are necessarily limited by the constraints imposed to achieve internal validity. Few consumers would ever find themselves in a setting and situation similar to that used in this experiment. But as is the case with most experiments, the artificial nature of the setting was the result of efforts to control for such extraneous variation as exposure time, history, and maturation. And as was mentioned earlier in this report, achieving a respectable degree of internal validity was an important criterion in the design of this experiment. Order Items 3 2 1 10 9 4 6 7 8 5 "Trustworthy" "Honest" "Reliable" "Lovable" "Generous" "Good" "Active" "Fast" "Rich" "Strong" Eigen Value (Initial) An obvious next step in a marketing research system is to conceptually replicate this experiment with a field experiment. The results of a field experiment would undoubtedly have to be tempered by an attached disclaimer warning others of the Internal validity which Percentage of Common Variance Note, 429 n = 110. Evaluative .88 .86 .82 .82 .62 .77 .10 .07 .11 .33 Factor 2: Activity, Potency .09 .28 .32 .06 -.04 .44 .75 .69 .57 .66 4.83 1.39 77.7% 22.3X h^' .830 .812 .779 .661 .390 .791 .565 .482 .343 .54B Table 1 Figure 2 Principal Components Factor Analysis of Attitude Toward Business and Advertising (VARIMAX Rotation) Negative Cognitive Responses as a Function of Corrective Advertisement Sponsorship and Audience Attitude toward Business and Advertising Order Ttem 5* Most corporations are socially responsible FACTOR 84 20 -06 -13 4* Most business executives are highly ethical 73 -20 04 1* Advertising is truthful 02 -10 14* 16* 68 -18 03 06 77 07 -15 -27 68 03 17 53 Advertisements present a true picture of the product 50 -03 -24 -04 -24 04 37 Too many of today's advertisements are silly and ridiculous -43 06 50 48 22 16 82 15 41 II -16 92 There should be less advertising 68 21 -05 0^ -18 54 62 -17 17 06 There should be more government regulation of advertising 13 61 -17 10 Advertisers are not likely admit they engaged in deceptive advertising unless forced to do so -33 51 31 -12 09 Most advertising insults the intelligence of the consumer -23 06 69 01 26 -08 61 There should be a ban on advertising of harmful or dangerous products -23 06 69 01 26 There is too much government regulation of business 17 -34 63 06 -07 -09 56 15 3 18 12 38 -07 59 01 53 34 58 27 -03 -02 53 Corporate profits are excessive 05 07 20 85 27 09 86 8 Large corporations have too much influence in government -27 26 06 62 1 Most products are safe 6 Most corporations intentionally engage in deceptive advertising -23 38 -07 % CONTROL COMPANY 12 1.72 Note. F = Persons with favorable generalized attitudes toward business UF = Persons with unfavorable attitudes N = 110. References Armstrong, Cary M. , George R, Franke, and Frederick A. Russ (1982), "The Effects of Corrective Advertising on Company Image," Journal of Advertising, 11(4), 39-47, Belch, Ceorge E. (1982), "The Effects of Television Commercial Repetition on Cognitive Response and Message Acceptance," Journal of Consumer Research, 9 (June), 56-63. Belch, George E., Michael A. Belch, Robert B. Settle, and Lisa DeLucchi (1981), "An Examination of Consumers' Perceptions of Purpose and Content of Corrective Advertising," in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 9, ed. Andrew A. Mitchell, Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Consumer Research, 327-332. Berkowitz, Leonard and Edward Donnerstein ( 1982), "External Validity is More than Skin Deep: Some Answers to Criticisms of Laboratory Experiments," American Psychologist, 37(3), 245-257. 14 08 55 02 60 Cacioppo, John T. (1982), "Social Psychophysiology: Classic Perspective and Contemporary Approach," Psychophysiology, 19(3), 241-251. 30 49 09 52 13 -06 94 96 Cacioppo, John T. and Richard E, Petty (1981), "Electromyograms as Measures of Extent and Affeetivity of Information Processing," American Psychologist, 36 (May), 441-456. 34 A Cacioppo, John T. and Richard E. Petty (1982), "The Need for Cognition," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42 (January), 116-131. FACTOR 2.09 FTC 01 -31 -59 Advertising is essential to the prosperity of our economy 08 -13 -14 4.70 0.0 34 60 7 Eigen Value 0.5 SPONSOR OF CORRECTIVE ADVERTISEMENT Advertising often persuades people to buy things they really don't need or shouldn't buy -02 1 1 1.0 TOWARD 13 48 12 17 COGNITIVE COMPANY 13 -02 1.5 THE 10 The FTC should be stricter in enforcing truth in advertising -12 Capitalism no longer meets the needs of society -11 NEGATIVE RESPONSES 19 9 2.0 + A 1 ^ 2 i I iL. 1.40 1.03 0.76 40.20 17.90 14.70 11.90 8.80 6.50 N'ote: J5 = 110. Decimal points from factor scores omitted. Subjects responded on 9-point Likert-type scales. *indicates items used in final Generalized Attitude Toward Business and Advertising Scale. Calder, Bobby J., Lynn W. Phillips, & Alice M. Tybout (1982), "The Concept of External Validity," Journal of Consumer Research, 9 (December), 240-244. Campbell, Donald T. and J. C. Stanley Experimental and Quasi-Kxperimental Designs for Research, Chicago: Rand McNally. 430 (1966), Churchill, Gilbert A., Jr. (1983), Marketing Research; Methodological Foundations, Third Edition, New York: The Dryden Press. Dyer, Robert F. and Philip G. Kuehl (1974), "The 'Corrective Advertising' Remedy of the FTC: An Experimental Evaluation," Journal of Marketing, 38 (January), 48-54. Heider, Fritz (1958), The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations, New York: Wiley. Hunt, H. Keith (1977), "Decision Points in FTC Deceptive Advertising Matters," Journal of Advertising, 6 (Spring). 28-31. Hunt, H. Keith and General Proceeding of Association for Association for (1972), "Source Effects, Message Effects Effects in Counteradvertlsing," in the Third Annual Conference of the Consumer Research, M. Venkatesan (ed.)i Consumer Research, 370-381, Joseph, W. Benoy and Robert W. Cook (1981), "Perceived Locus of Control: The Moderating Effect of Personality and Social Attitudes toward Business," Akron Business and Economic _Reyiew, (Fall), 19-24. Kassarjian, Harold H. (1982), "Consumer Psychology," In Annual Review of Psychology, Vol 33, Palo Alto: Annual Reviews, Inc., 619-650. Kassarjian, Harold H., Cynthia J. Carlson, and Paula E. Rosin (1975) , "A Corrective Advertising Study," in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol 2, M. J. Schlinger (ed.), Chicago: Association for Consumer Research, 631-642. Kim, Jae-on and Charles W. Mueller (1978), Factor An_alysis: Statistical Methods and Practical Issues, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1978. Kirk, Roger E. (1968), Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences, Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co. Lammers, H. Bruce (1982), "Effects of Biased Scanning and Distraction on Cognitive Responses," Journal of Social Psychology, 116, 99-105. Lammers, H. Bruce (1985), "A Multltrait-Multlmetbod Analysis of the Validity of Cognitive Response Assessment Procedures," in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol, XII, eds. Elizabeth C, Hirshmann and Morris B, Holbrook, in press. Lammers, H, Bruce and Lee A, Becker (1980), "Distraction: Effects on the Perceived Extremity of a Communication and on Cognitive Responses," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 6 (June), 261-266. Lammers, H. Bruce, Laurie Leibowitz, George Edw. Seymour, and Judith E. Hennessey (1983), "Immediate and Delayed Effects of Humor on Cognitive Responses to Advertising Stimuli: A Trace Consolidation Approach," Journal of Business Research, II (June), 173-185. Olson, Jerry C , Daniel R. Toy, and Philip A. Dover (1978), "Do Cognitive Responses Mediate the Effects of Advertising Content on Structure?" Journnal of Consumer Research, 9 (December), 245-262, Petty, Richard E. , Thomas M. Ostrom, and Timothy Brock (1981), Cognitive Responses in Persuasion, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. C. Petty, Richard E. , Gary L. Wells, and Timothy C. Brock (1976) "Distraction can Enhance or Reduce Yielding to Propaganda: Thought Disruption versus Effort Justification," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34 (November), 874-884. Reid, Leonard N. and Lawrence C. Soley (1982), "Generalized and Personalized Attitudes toward Advertising's Social and Economic Effects," Journal of Advertising, 11(3), 3-7. Russell, James A. (1980) "A Circumplex Model of Affect," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39 (June), 1161-1178, Russell, James A. and Albert Mehrabian (1976), "Environmental Variables in Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research, 3 (June), 62-63. Russell, James A. and Géraldine Pratt (1980), Description of the Affective Quality Attributed Environments," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38 (February), 311-322. "A to Sawyer, Alan and Scott Ward (1979), "Carryover Effects in Advertising Communication," in Research in Marketing, Vol 2, Jagdish N. Sheth (ed.), Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc. Sawyer, Alan G., Parker M. Worthing, and Paul E. Sendak (1979), "The Role Laboratory Experiments to Test Marketing Strategies," Journal of Marketing, 43 (Summer), 60-67. Scammon, Debra L, and Richard J. Semenik (1982), "Corrective Advertising: Evolution of the Legal Theory and Application of the Remedy," Journal of Advertising, 11(1), 10-20. Semenik, Richard J. (1980), "Corrective Advertising: An Experimental Evaluation of Alternative Television Messages," Journal of Advertising, 9 ( 3 ) , 21-30. Sbeth, Jagdish N. and Douglas J. Tigert (1977) "Factor Analysis in Marketing," in Multivariate Methods for Market and Survey Research, Jagdish N. Sheth (ed.), Chicago: American Marketing Association, 135-156. Swlnyard, William R. (1981), "The Interaction between Comparative Advertising and Copy Claim Variation," Journal of Marketing Research, 18 (May), 175-186. Toy, Daniel R. (1982), "Monitoring Communication Effects: A Cognitive Strueture/Cognitive Response Approach," Journal of Consumer Research, 9 (June), 66-76. Larkln, Ernest F. (1977), "A Factor Analysis of College Student Attitudes toward Advertising," Journal of Advertising, 6 (Spring), 42-46. Tyebjee, Tyzoon T. (1982), "The Role of Publicity in FTC Corrective Advertising Remedies," Journal of Marketing and Public Policy, 111-121. Lutz, Richard and Jack Swasy (1977), "Integrating Cognitive Structure and Cognitive Response Approaches to Monitoring Communication Effects," in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 4, ed. William D. Perreault, Atlanta: Association for Consumer Research, 1977, 363-371. Uicklund, Robert A. and Dieter Frey (1981), "Cognitive Consistency: Motivational vs, Non-Motivational Perspectives," in Social Cognition, Joseph P. Forgas (ed.). New York: Academic Press, 141-163. Mizerski, Richard W. Neil K. Allison, and Stephen Calvert (1980) "A Controlled Field Study of Corrective Advertising Using Multiple Exposures and a Commerical Medium," Journal of Marketing Research, 17 (August), 341-348, 431 Wright, Peter (1974) "Analysing Media Effects on Advertising Responses," Public Opinion Quarterly, 38, 192-205, Wright, Peter (1980), "Message-Evoked Thoughts: Persuasion Research using Thought Verbalization," Journal of Consumer Research, 7 (September), 151-175,