High Need For Cognition Research Articles

Effects of Message Strategy and Need for Cognition (NFC) on Consumer Attitudes: A Case of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Advertising

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) advertising can differentiate brands and create product value, and an appropriate messaging strategy can help corporations launch persuasive CSR advertisements. This study employed a 2 × 2 mixed experimental design to operate two independent variables—message strategy of CSR advertising (CSR-informational advertising vs. CSR-transformational advertising) and the level of need for cognition (high-NFC vs. low-NFC)—in order to examine the effect of these variables on consumers’ attitudes toward advertising and brands. Three primary conclusions were reached: 1) the message strategy of CSR advertising influenced consumers’ attitudes toward advertising and brands; 2) NFC levels influenced consumers’ attitudes toward advertising and brands; and 3) individuals with high NFC exhibited more positive attitudes toward advertisements and brands in the CSR-informational advertising compared with those in the CSR-transformational advertising. Overall, using advertising to promote CSR activities can strengthen corporate image, promote consumer behavior, and consolidate consumers’ brand loyalty; however, corporations must actively consider how to appropriately design CSR advertising content.

Role of school climate and personality in the development of Czech adolescents’ political self-efficacy

ABSTRACTThis study examined the effects of school climate (open classroom and positive student relationships) and personality dispositions (shyness and need for cognition) on adolescents’ political self-efficacy. Data were collected in 2014 from 1,954 Czech ninth- and tenth-graders (mean age = 15.60). A multilevel analysis showed that school-level political self-efficacy predicted self-efficacy for local politics. However, schools and classrooms were rather homogeneous in terms of students’ mean political self-efficacy and students’ self-reported acquisition of civic skills at school. Hence, school characteristics had only limited associations with adolescents’ political self-efficacy. At the same time, students’ political efficacy had a considerable association with lower shyness and higher need for cognition. These results suggest that the development of political efficacy at school goes beyond simple general influences of school environment and individual differences between students must be considered.

Well Self-Regulated People Use Mental Contrasting

Abstract. Mentally contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy helping people manage their life by promoting selective goal pursuit: people pursue feasible futures and disengage from unfeasible ones. We investigated whether participants who effectively regulate their academic and everyday life spontaneously use mental contrasting. Indeed, students who were good self-regulators in the academic domain, as indicated by their high self-reported academic self-regulation skills, high need for achievement, and above-average grades mentally contrasted when writing about an important achievement-related wish (Study 1). So did participants who were good self-regulators in everyday life as indicated by their high self-reported generalized self-regulation skills and high need for cognition (Study 2). Results indicate that successful self-regulation is linked to spontaneous mental contrasting.

Intuitive Versus Contemplative: Do Entrepreneurs Differ in Their Decision-Making Style from Managers and Employees?

We examine in a large survey (n = 1,928) how contemplative entrepreneurs, managers and employees are in their decision making styles. Besides two well-known subjective measures taken from psychology, we also build on Rubinstein (2016) by including two objective measures derived from response times and the nature of the strategic choices made. Supporting conventional wisdom, we find that entrepreneurs have a stronger subjective Faith in Intuition than others. Their actual action choices are partly in line with this: entrepreneurs make indeed more intuitive choices than managers, but are equally intuitive as employees. At the same time entrepreneurs have response times and a subjective Need for Cognition that (on average) equal those of managers. Together these findings tentatively suggest that entrepreneurs start from a stronger prior intuition, making them ceteris paribus more intuitive than others, but at the same time share with managers a higher need for cognition, and thus take more time to think things over.

Learning the hard way: Need for Cognition influences attitudes toward and self-reported use of desirable difficulties

We investigate the relationship between Need for Cognition (NFC), attitude towards and self-reported application of different desirable difficulties in self-regulated learning. Students with a higher NFC should be more appreciative and prone to use desirable difficulties because of a match between the learner’s attributes and the learning task requirements: cognitively effortful learning conditions will be preferred by students with a higher propensity for cognitive challenges. Supporting our hypotheses, we show that indeed a higher NFC positively relates to attitudes and use of different desirable difficulties (Study 1–2), especially to self-generating of materials and predictions, but weaker and inconsistently to interleaving/spacing and self-testing/practicing. While self-generating of contents and predictions loaded on one factor, and interleaving/spacing together with self-testing/practicing loaded on another factor, this two-factor structure was reliably obtained for self-reported use, yet for attitudes a one-factor structure did fit. Most importantly though, the observed relationship between NFC and different desirable difficulties could neither be explained by high school graduation grade, indicating academic competence (Study 1), nor by academic self-concept as one’s perception of one’s academic abilities (Study 2). Results are discussed within an information-processing framework related to implications for desirable difficulties as learning strategies.

Direction of comparison effect and consumer research: from general to specific implications

When two alternatives are compared, the one that becomes the focus of comparison has a relative advantage (resp., disadvantage) when two alternatives share positive (resp., negative) unique features. This “direction of comparison effect” (DCE) has been found to manifest clearly when three conditions are met: when information is retrieved from memory rather than being externally presented, when a consumer has low product involvement but a high need for cognition, and when the attribute set size is large. The authors argue that at least two additional conditions must be met when applying the DCE in marketing: (1) the presence of unique features of market offerings and (2) the absence of situational factors such as commitment to an alternative. Experimental data on choice behavior regarding business hotels provide support for these two conditions. Also, in discussing the results, it has become clear that unnoticed DCE bias should be carefully canceled out in surveys by designing questionnaires to ensure that each alternative randomly becomes the focal alternative.

Elementary school children’s understanding of science: The implementation of an extracurricular science intervention

The promotion of students’ achievement and competence in the so-called STEM disciplines is one cornerstone of current educational research and practice. In particular, as early as elementary school, the fostering of an adequate understanding of science is a normative goal of science education. It facilitates students’ science learning and enables them to understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge. Based on the relevance of the promotion of young children’s understanding of science, a corresponding science intervention was recently developed and successfully evaluated in a first study under highly controlled conditions. The goal of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of this intervention when implemented in practice. One hundred seventeen third- and fourth-grade students and 10 trained course instructors participated in this study. We applied a randomized block design with waitlist control groups and repeated measures. The results revealed that children assigned to the intervention compared with children assigned to the waitlist control group showed better inquiry-related methodological competencies (a better understanding of the scientific inquiry cycle and experimentation strategies) and a higher need for cognition. The findings point to the successful implementation of the intervention and are compared with the results of the first study.

Individual versus group decision making: Jurors' reliance on central and peripheral information to evaluate expert testimony.

To investigate dual-process persuasion theories in the context of group decision making, we studied low and high need-for-cognition (NFC) participants within a mock trial study. Participants considered plaintiff and defense expert scientific testimony that varied in argument strength. All participants heard a cross-examination of the experts focusing on peripheral information (e.g., credentials) about the expert, but half were randomly assigned to also hear central information highlighting flaws in the expert’s message (e.g., quality of the research presented by the expert). Participants rendered pre- and post-group-deliberation verdicts, which were considered “scientifically accurate” if the verdicts reflected the strong (versus weak) expert message, and “scientifically inaccurate” if they reflected the weak (versus strong) expert message. For individual participants, we replicated studies testing classic persuasion theories: Factors promoting reliance on central information (i.e., central cross-examination, high NFC) improved verdict accuracy because they sensitized individual participants to the quality discrepancy between the experts’ messages. Interestingly, however, at the group level, the more that scientifically accurate mock jurors discussed peripheral (versus central) information about the experts, the more likely their group was to reach the scientifically accurate verdict. When participants were arguing for the scientifically accurate verdict consistent with the strong expert message, peripheral comments increased their persuasiveness, which made the group more likely to reach the more scientifically accurate verdict.

Purchase decision: does too much choice leave us unhappy?

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to determine how and when choice variety influences consumers’ willingness to purchase, according to a personal emotion perspective. The choice paradox indicates that although having many choices can be beneficial, it can also cause customer decision paralysis and unhappiness. This article proposes that the desire and motivation to process information vary from person to person, and emotional factors are relevant.Design/methodology/approachWith a 2 × 2 experimental design, this study examines the influence of the interaction of choice variety with need for cognition (NFC) on positive and negative emotions, and then tests the mediating effects on purchase intentions. The sample includes 214 college students, assigned randomly to self-assessment questionnaires.FindingsBoth high NFC respondents in the high variety condition and low NFC respondents in the low variety condition exhibit more positive emotions than low NFC respondents in the high variety condition but not more than high NFC respondents in the low variety condition. Positive (negative) emotions increase (decrease) consumers’ purchase intentions.Research limitations/implicationsThe experiment was conducted in a virtual store, which may not match real-life store environments or reflect participants’ actual purchase behaviours, so additional research should consider the influence of involvement further.Practical implicationsThe results offer suggestions for developing more effective communication with emotions, increasing involvement to maintain consumers’ positive emotions and relieve their confusion, and managing product variety.Originality/valueThis article meets the identified need to study how choice variety influences consumers’ willingness to purchase from a personal emotion perspective.

Brand placement in text: the short- and long-term effects of placement modality and need for cognition

ABSTRACTThe present research explores how placing a brand name in the dialogue versus the narration of a fictional text (i.e. placement modality) affects brand attitude and purchase intention. Moreover, it studies the moderating role of need for cognition (NFC) and measures brand responses both immediately after exposure and two weeks later. As predicted, encountering a brand name in the dialogue as compared to in the narration of a story is associated with lower brand attitudes for readers with high NFC at both measurement points. Purchase intentions are similarly affected, but the effects are only significant at a delay. In contrast, brand evaluations of readers with low NFC are largely unaffected by placement modality.

Textual Primacy Online: Impression Formation Based on Textual and Visual Cues in Facebook Profiles

The existing literature presents ambivalent evidence regarding the significance of visual cues, as opposed to textual cues, in the process of impression formation. While visual information may have a strong effect due to its vividness and immediate absorption, textual information might be more powerful due to its solid, unambiguous nature. This debate is particularly relevant in the context of online social networks, whose users share textual and visual elements. To explore our main research question, “Which elements of one’s Facebook profile have a more significant influence on impression formation of extroversion—pictures or texts?” we conducted two complementary online experiments, manipulating visual and textual cues inside and outside the context of Facebook. We then attempted to identify the relevant underlying mechanisms in impression formation. Our findings indicate that textual cues play a more dominant role online, whether via Facebook or not, supporting assertions of a new-media literacy that is text based. Additionally, we found the participants’ level of need for cognition influenced the effect such that individuals with a high need for cognition placed more emphasis on textual cues. The number of “likes” was also a significant predictor of perceptions of the individuals’ social orientation, especially when the other cues were ambiguous.

Contributing or receiving-the role of social interaction styles in persuasion over a social networking platform

In this paper, the use of the network platform Twitter is explored in relation to behavior change (BC) for health. We studied the effect of participation style (tweeters vs. non-tweeters) on perceived health behavior change through the constructs social influence, efficacy, and pre-test health In the experiment (N = 30), participants were given a basic health message, and the tweeters were then asked to actively search, think up, and share tips and guidance with non-tweeters. Results indicate that for both tweeters and non-tweeters, efficacy and influence were positively related, but that efficacy and perceived health behavior change are only positively related for non-tweeters. From this, we concluded that participation style can impact the effect of efficacy on target behavior. To understand the information processing in the two groups in terms of higher or lower need for cognition, we also studied the participants' thought elaboration. We found that tweeters were more distracted from elaboration on the health message, in particular those tweeters presenting a higher need for cognition. From this, we concluded that taking an active content creating role in peer-to-peer e-coaching systems may lead (a) to higher efficacy appraisal without a positive impact on BC and (b) to reduced attention on the intended behavior change message. In other words, the position of producing content may not translate into better intake of that content. In conclusion, there is a need for investigating strategies for overcoming the distracting nature of an active sharing role in e-coaching systems presented by a network platform.

How gamers process in-game brand placements under different game-involvement conditions

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to enhance the knowledge about advertising effects of brand placements in games on players’ brand recall and attitude. More specifically, this study examines the varying effects of brand prominence on gamers’ brand recall and brand attitude under varied game-involvement and need for cognition (NFC) conditions from attention and elaboration perspectives in the context of in-game advertising (IGA).Design/methodology/approachA 2 (brand prominence: prominent or subtle) × 2 (game-involvement: high or low) × 2 (NFC: high or low) between-subject measures design was used. Moreover, 240 student gamers participated in the study. A between-subjects measure multivariate analysis of variance was used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results revealed that for a game with prominent brand placement, low game-involvement resulted in greater brand recall than high game-involvement condition. Furthermore, for a game with prominent brand placement, high game-involvement condition resulted in more favorable brand attitude than low game-involvement condition. For a game with subtle brand placement, no differences in brand recall rates as well as brand attitudes were found between the high and the low game-involvement conditions. Likewise, for a game with prominent brand placement under low game-involvement condition, high NFC players reported higher brand recall rates and less favorable brand attitudes than the low NFC players. On the other hand, for a game with subtle brand placement under high-game-involvement condition, no differences in brand recall rates as well as brand attitudes were found between the high and the low NFC players.Research limitations/implicationsThe process of experimentation used in this study to collect responses was susceptible to some limitations. However, this research adds to advertising literature from a non-traditional advertising viewpoint, predominantly in the context of IGA. This study enlightens the role of brand prominence and its boundary conditions to create customers’ brand memory and brand attitude. Likewise, this investigation adds to the marketing knowledge on how to embed and position the brands effectively in digital games taking into account the specific physiognomies of each game and individual traits of gamers.Practical implicationsThis study provides a clear understanding of how marketers can design and develop effective games with a purpose to increase and improve customers’ awareness and attitudes toward the advertised brands by embedding brands in games. The experimental findings suggest the advertising practitioners and game designers to think for a right mix of game-specific factors, that is brand prominence, and individual and situational factors, that is game-involvement and NFC, while creating games to have a stoutest positive advergaming effect on players’ brand recall and brand attitude.Originality/valueThis study adds to the literature of non-traditional advertising media, specifically to the context of IGA, by investigating the impact of brand prominence, game-involvement and gamers’ NFC on their brand recall and attitude. From the attention and elaboration perspectives, this study is the first attempt to understand how brand prominence and its boundary conditions, that is game-involvement and NFC, impact players’ brand recall and brand attitude.

Music is awesome: Influences of emotion, personality, and preference on experienced awe

AbstractAwe is a complex, cognitive–conceptual emotion associated with transcendence and wonder. Music has the power to create this kind of transcendence. Can music evoke awe? Previous research demonstrates that awe is associated with individual differences in personality such as openness. This study examined whether different kinds of music across a wide variety of genres can evoke awe and whether the experience of awe depends on individual differences. The study further investigated the relationship of awe to patterns of emotional responses to different dimensions of musical genre. Study 1 demonstrated that high need for cognition and low cognitive closure predicted awe for reflective and complex music, that felt happiness predicted awe for all kinds of music, and that perceived happiness and sadness predicted awe only for reflective and complex music. Study 2 replicated the finding that perceived sadness can evoke awe in reflective and complex music and further demonstrated that experienced musical awe correlates with individual differences in the tendency to experience awe more generally. These results are of interest to advertisers interested in evoking awe with music and marketers interested in segmenting to target the appropriate populations for this purpose.

The influence of consumers’ self-perceived health status and need for cognition on food-product evaluation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying mechanisms of how consumers respond to health-claim framing via experimental design.Design/methodology/approachAcross the two experiments conducted for this research, the authors examine the moderating effects of self-perceived health status and individuals’ need for cognition on health-claim framing.FindingsThe results indicate that personal differences moderate the effects of health-claim framing on consumers’ food-product evaluation. Consumers with poor health status evaluate food product more favorably when the reduced-disease-risk claims are offered. However, consumers with good health status evaluate food product similarly between the two health claims. Moreover, consumers with a high need for cognition evaluate food product more favorably when the reduced-disease-risk claims are used, whereas consumers with a low need for cognition evaluate food product more favorably when the enhance function claims are used.Practical implicationsThis research provides that reduced-disease-risk claims may be the better communication message used to persuade consumers no matter they rate themselves as poor health status or good health status. Moreover, the results of the present research also indicate the importance of market segmentation. Marketers could design proper advertisements and select the appropriate media vehicles for low need for cognition readers and high need for cognition readers separately.Originality/valueThere has been few studies addressed consumers’ product choice with respect to different health-claim framing. Further, this research presents a new concept of the effects between individual differences and health-claim framing on consumers’ food-product evaluation.

Effect of nature of the game on ad-persuasion in online gaming context

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of nature of advergame and moderating roles of game-product congruence and need for cognition (NFC) on gamers’ ad-persuasion from attention and elaboration perspectives.Design/methodology/approachA 2 (nature of game: fast or slow)×2 (game-product congruence: high or low)×2 (NFC: high or low) between measures design is used. In total, 224 graduate students participated in the study. A 2×2×2 between subjects ANOVA is used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that slow-paced advergames result in high persuasion than fast-paced advergames. A 2 way-interaction indicates that for a slow-paced advergame, low game-product congruence result in high persuasion than in high game-product congruence. Furthermore, findings reveal that for a slow-paced advergame with low game-product congruence, subjects with high NFC report high persuasion than subjects with low NFC. For a fast-paced advergame with low game-product congruence, subjects with high NFC report high persuasion than subjects with low NFC.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study are very important for advertising practitioners as selection of media that fit the advertised product with reference to the content of the media is a planning strategy that has been widely used by media planners. Thus, if high brand recall and recognition is the primary goal for advertisers, then, slow-paced advergames with low-congruent brand placements can be considered a better media strategy for in-game advertising. Furthermore, advertising managers can design advergames by taking into account NFC factor to make sure that the implementation has the strongest positive effect on consumers’ persuasion. Furthermore, advertising managers can design advergames by taking into account NFC factor to make sure that the implementation has the strongest positive effect on consumers’ persuasion.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the literature of non-traditional online advertising, specifically advergaming context by exploring the impact of nature of game and game-product congruence on gamers’ ad-persuasion. Also, this study is the first attempt toward understanding the moderating role of NFC on gamers’ ad-persuasion in the context of online advertising.

Who Knows? Knowledge Activation, Belief in Certainty of Knowledge, Maximization Tendencies and Need for Cognition in Answerability Judgments

ABSTRACTIn this study, investigating answerability judgments, 123 participants judged whether each of 46 general knowledge questions could currently be answered by themselves, by someone else, or by no one. There were 26 consensus questions (high expected consensus about their answerability) and 20 non-consensus questions. Before each question, half of the participants rated the extent of their knowledge related to the question. Results showed that answering consensus questions compared with non-consensus led to a lower proportion of “No one knows” answers. Moreover, in the knowledge rating condition compared with the control condition, participants choose “No one knows” proportionally less. Participants’ ratings of belief in certainty of knowledge were associated with more “Someone else knows” for the non-consensus questions. Moreover, tendency to maximization led to a higher proportion of “Someone else knows” options for the non-consensus questions. Finally, high need for cognition was associated with fewer choices of “Someone else knows.”

광고유형, 브랜드 전형성, 인지욕구가 광고태도에 미치는 영향 - 아웃도어 의류 브랜드를 중심으로 -

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of comparative advertisement brand typicality and need for recognition in outdoor apparel market. This study was created with a mixed factorial design of 2 (Advertisement types: Comparative advertisement vs. General advertisement) X 2(Brand Typicality: High Brand vs. Low Brand) X 2 (Need for Cognition: High vs. Low). The results of this study are as follows: First, it was shown that comparative advertisement had a greater positive influence on attitudes toward advertising intentions in comparison to general advertisements. Second, while comparative advertisement was more effective than general advertisement for outdoor apparel brands with low typicality. Third, consumers with higher need for cognition showed a preferred attitude toward advertising intention when met with comparative advertising in contrast to general advertisement. Fourth, when consumers with higher needs for cognition were exposed to advertisement for brands of lower typicality, there was higher positive influence on the attitudes toward advertisement intention with comparative advertisement in comparison to general advertisement. This means the comparative advertisement may be effective for the new garment brand or the garment brands having low typicality to secure the cognition quickly from the consumers having high need for cognition.

Dispositional Insight Scale: Development and Validation of a Tool That Measures Propensity Toward Insight In Problem Solving

This article reports the development of a brief self-report measure of dispositional insight problem solving, the Dispositional Insight Scale (DIS). From a representative Australian database, 1,069 adults (536 women and 533 men) completed an online questionnaire. An exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed a 5-item scale, with all items loading onto a single factor. Internal consistency was acceptable with a Cronbach’s alpha of .74. The DIS showed convergent validity with other constructs that are theoretically related to insight: High need for cognition, intuition and positive affect. Normative data for the scale are also reported. The DIS appears to be useful for measuring a disposition toward insight in problem-solving.

Cognitive, Emotional and Behavioral Reactions to Corporate Rebranding: Do NFC and Ambivalence Matter?

The present paper aims to serve two purposes. The first one is to investigatethe influence of intrinsic motivation suchas the need for cognition on ambivalence towards rebranding and secondly, how individuals with different ambivalence levels react in terms of cognition, emotion and behavioral intention to corporate rebranding. The findings provide better understanding to the expensive and risky corporate rebranding program, by supporting the existence of ambivalent attitudes. Firstly, individuals with a high need for cognition tend to experience higher ambivalent attitudes hence have a higher tendency to put buying decisions on hold. Secondly, high-ambivalence individuals try to search for more information which eventually lead them to put buying decisions on hold, due to their high psychological discomfort. Procrastination and amplification effects are clearly evident among them. Conversely, low-ambivalence individuals prefer to choose approach responses over procrastination. Differences in cognition and behavioral intentions are evident imply the need for appropriate planning and implementation of corporate rebranding strategy.