Media differences in rational and emotional responses to advertising

Abstract

This study develops and tests hypotheses concerning the relationship of different media to psychological outcomes. Specifically, it is postulated that print media are related to analytic cognition (reason) and electronic media to syncretic cognition (emotion). Two hundred and forty magazine and television advertisements are analyzed both in terms of their attributes and the reactions they evoke. Media differences are found for both emotional and rational responses and the main effects of media, product category and advertising strategy variables are seen to account substantially for the variance in analytic and syncretic cognition. Of special relevance to advertisers is the finding that the choice of media is the best predictor of emotional response among all the variables in the study.