Do Cognitive Responses Mediate the Effects of Advertising Content on ...

Do Cognitive Responses Mediate the Effects of Advertising Content on Cognitive Structure? JERRY C. OLSON DANIEL R. TOY PHILIP A. DOVER* A central assumption of a combined cognitive response/cognitive structure model of communication is that cognitive responses mediate message effects on belief, attitude, and behavioral intention elements of cognitive structure. This key prop· osition was tested in a laboratory experiment in which subjects were exposed to advertisements containing varying information about a new brand. The results suggest that either support or counterarguing partially mediate every effect of the ad content manipulations on all three elements of cognitive structure. However, cognitive responses did not mediate all of the treatment-induced variation in cognitive structure. Alternative explanations for the results and issues and directions for future theoretical development and research are discussed.

T

his study combines two popular theoretical and methodological approaches to communications researchthe cognitive response and cognitive structure paradigmsinto a single model of communication effects. The cognitive response approach focuses on the cognitive processes (as indicated by measured cognitive responses) that occur upon exposure to a persuasive communication and presumably mediate its subsequent cognitive effects; the cognitive structure paradigm focuses on the effects of a communication on several theoretically related cognitive structure variables, including beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. The combined cognitive response/cognitive structure communication model accounts for a wider range of communications effects than does either model alone. In this paper, we describe the joint cognitive response/ cognitive structure model and present the results of a test

of the mediation effects of cognitive responses within the model. Our specific concern was whether or not cognitive responses mediated the effects of an advertisement for a new product on belief, attitude, and intention elements of cognitive structure.

COGNITIVE STRUCTURE MODEL The cognitive structure model emphasizes beliefs as the fundamental cognitive element (see Lutz 1975; Lutz and Swasy 1977; Olson and Dover 1978). The most widely used models of cognitive structure in consumer research have been adapted from Fishbein's (1963, 1967) attitude theory. Fishbein's basic theory specifies that a person's attitude toward (overall evaluation of) a stimulus is related to, and in fact is caused by, that person's salient beliefs about the stimulus (Fishbein 1967; Mitchell and Olson 1981). Fishbein modeled this relationship as an equality between a direct measure of attitude toward an object (Ao) and an indirect, aggregated index of attitude based on measures of the strengths (b) and evaluations (e) of the n salient beliefs:

*Jerry Olson is Associate Professor of Marketing and Daniel Toy is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. Philip Dover is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215. This research was supported by a grant to the first author from the Center for Research, College of Business Administration, Pennsylvania State University. Results of preliminary analyses of this data were presented at the 1977 Conference of the Association for Consumer Research and published by the authors in the 1978 Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 5. Preparation of this article was supported by the Marketing Science Institute, where the first author spent the 1981-1982 academic year as a Visiting Research Professor. We are grateful for assistance in the data analysis from Rajesh Kanwar and for useful comments from Rebecca Holman, Andrew Mitchell, P.S. Raju, Jay Russo, Diane Schmalensee, Jack Swasy, Dale Wilson, and a JCR reviewer.

n

Ao =

2:

i= I

biei

(1)

Fishbein's extension of this attitude model related the attitude concept (Ao or Aact) and a social norm/compliance concept (the latter is omitted in subsequent discussion) to behavioral intention (BI), which in tum is presumed to have a causal impact on overt behavior (see Fishbein and Ajzen 245 © JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH. Vol. 9. December 1982

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THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

1975). Of course, the effect of intentions on overt behavior is moderated by a wide variety of situational factors in the surrounding environment that also may affect behavior. In sum, the hypothesized causal effects· flow from beliefs to attitudes to intentions to behavior. Fairly consistent support has been obtained for most of these relationships (e.g., Bettman, Capon, and Lutz 1975; Dover and Olson 1977; Lutz 1975, 1977; Mazis, Ahtola, and Klippel 1975; Mitchell and Olson 1981; and Ryan 1974, among many others). When cast in terms of communications effects, Fishbein's attitude theory implies that a persuasive message such as an advertisement affects attitudes and intentions through its "direct" effect on belief strengths and/or evaluations of beliefs (cf. Holbrook 1978; Mitchell and Olson 1981): Ad Exposure ~ Beliefs ~ Attitude ~ Intention ~ Behavior

(2)

That is, processing the information contained in an advertisement should first create new concepts in memory and linkages between the concepts-in other words, a set of beliefs. These beliefs can be thought of as a cognitive structure, a network consisting of the learned concepts about a brand and the associations between those concepts (Olson 1978a, 1978b). These "new" beliefs may be integrated into the structure of beliefs about the brand that existed prior to ad exposure, if any, thus creating a new cognitive structure about the brand. According to the theory represented in Models 1 and 2, this new belief structure might cause subsequent changes in attitude, which in tum should affect behavioral intention and, ultimately, overt behavior (see Fishbein and Ajzen 1975 for a detailed discussion of the entire process).

COGNITIVE RESPONSE MODEL An alternative perspective is provided by the cognitive response model, developed explicitly for monitoring mass communication effects (Greenwald 1968). Its basic premise is that the spontaneous thoughts (cognitive responses) elicited by exposure to a message act as direct mediators of attitude formation or change. Thus, the advertising effects model implicit in the cognitive response approach may be represented as: Ad Exposure

~

Cognitive Responses ~ Attitude (or Attitude Change)

(3)

From this point of view, understanding communication impact requires attention to the cognitive thought responses emitted during (and perhaps immediately after) exposure to the communication (cf. Brock 1967; Wright 1973). The general paradigm for cognitive response research involves the following procedures (see Wright 1974b, 1980 for a more complete discussion). Either during or immediately after exposure to a persuasive message, a subject is asked to write or verbalize all of the thoughts that occurred during exposure. These thought protocols are assumed to

reflect the internal, subvocal cognitive responses that occurred during exposure to the communication. The recorded cognitive responses are then classified in various ways, usually by the experimenter, occasionally by the subject. Alternative categories for cognitive responses include whether or not there is a "critical" or "favorable" orientation to the thought, the perceived origin of the thought (was it initiated by the subject or the message?), and whether or not the thought meets a prescribed definition for a type of cognitive response. Common types of cognitive responses include counterarguments (CA), source derogations (SD), support arguments (SA), and curiosity statements (CS). Cognitive response scores are then computed for each subject based upon the categorizations. Usually these cognitive response scores are a simple tally of the number of counterarguments, source derogations, and support arguments (NCA, NSD, and NSA, respectively). Finally, the scores which operationalize the cognitive response mediators are typically used to predict a criterion such as attitude, attitude change, or occasionally, behavioral intentions.

COGNITIVE RESPONSE/COGNITIVE STRUCTURE MODEL The cognitive structure and cognitive response models provide somewhat different perspectives for modeling the impact of advertisements or other types of communications. The cognitive structure model focuses our attention on the effects of an advertisement on consumers' beliefs and on the static relationships between those beliefs and attitude (or between attitudes and intentions). However, the cognitive structure model is not specific about the processes by which information in an advertisement causes belief formation, changes in belief strength or evaluation, or subsequent attitude formation or change. In contrast, the cognitive response model concerns the initial cognitive processes that occur during exposure to a communication and their subsequent effects, usually on attitudes or intentions. However, the cognitive response model does not address the relationships between cognitive structure elements such as attitudes and intentions, and beliefs are seldom mentioned. We believe that combining these two approaches produces an integrated communication effects model that has the best features of each. In this joint model, the subvocal thoughts produced by cognitive processes in response to exposure to a communication can be considered to mediate the formation of new beliefs or changes in existing beliefs, as well as to influence attitudes and intentions. For instance, counterarguing with an advertised claim that a product possesses a particular attribute seems likely to reduce one's strength of belief in that association, or block the formation of that belief in the first place, rather than directly affect brand attitude. Conversely, support arguing may increase the strength of existing beliefs or create new beliefs. Then, according to the cognitive structure model, the salient be-

247

COGNITIVE RESPONSE MEDIATORS

liefs that are produced or changed by cognitive response activity should subsequently influence attitude formation or change, which in tum should affect behavioral intention and actual behavior. This combined model implies the following view of advertising effects: Ad Exposure ~ Cognitive Responses ~ Beliefs ~ Attitude ~ Intentions

~

Behavior

(4)

The potential for this combined model approach was independently recognized by Lutz and Swasy (1977), and the reader is referred to their paper for a detailed and somewhat different exposition. A critical assumption implied by the cognitive response/ cognitive structure model is that cognitive responses mediate all of the effects of an advertisement on the various elements of cognitive structure, beginning with beliefs. One can consider the mediation role of cognitive responses in this joint model in two senses-either a strictly literal interpretation of the linear sequence of effects illustrated in Model 4 or a somewhat "looser" interpretation. A literal view of Model 4 suggests that an advertisement directly affects only belief elements of cognitive structure and that cognitive responses mediate all of these effects. In tum, all message effects on attitude would be mediated through beliefs. The looser view is consistent with Mitchell and Olson's (1981) suggestion that an advertisement may have impact on attitude and intention elements of cognitive structure (partially) independent of its effects on beliefs. From this perspective, cognitive responses can be seen as mediating each specific effect of a communication, whether on beliefs, attitudes, or intentions. Even looser interpretations suggest that cognitive responses may only partially mediate message effects on cognitive structure or may mediate only some of these effects. Such perspectives imply that mental processes that are not tapped by the verbal cognitive response protocols might be mediating some effects on cognitive structure elements. Obviously, it will be difficult to unravel these complex causal linkages to identify the "true" mediation role of cognitive responses. The results of this study have some relevance for the causal issues already considered, and we address these in the discussion section. However, we did not design this research to test all the causal relationships inherent in a literal interpretation of the joint cognitive response/cognitive structure model. Our goals were more modest. In this paper we seek to establish whether or not, and to what extent, cognitive responses mediate the effects of an advertisement on belief, attitude, and intention elements of cognitive structure. We do not test the causal relationships between the cognitive structure elements. Thus, we are examining the validity of a "loose" interpretation of Model 4. We are particularly interested in testing the message-mediating effects of cognitive responses on topic-specific beliefs, since no published research has yet examined this effect. Most studies have been concerned with cognitive response mediation of attitudes and/or intentions.

EVIDENCE FOR COGNITIVE RESPONSE MEDIATION Two studies in the consumer behavior literature dealt directly with the mediation effects of cognitive responses (Wright 1973, 1974a; Sternthal, Dholakia, and Leavitt 1978). In each, support was claimed for the notion that cognitive responses mediated the effect of an advertising message on certain cognitive structure variables. Given the nature of the evidence, however, these conclusions may be somewhat overstated. Wright (1973) manipulated "processing involvement" (the receiver's motivation to pay attention to the message) and medium (print versus audio) in a communication setting involving exposure to a six-argument message about a new brand of soybean-based food. The media factor produced significant effects on the number of support arguments (NSA) and on RI, but not on the number of counterarguments (NCA) or A o ' while level of involvement affected only NCA, but not RI or Ao' These results are not consistent with the causal flow represented in Model 3. However, neither do they strongly disconfirm the mediation effect of cognitive response on attitude, since there were no treatment effects on attitude to be mediated. Thus, Wright's (1973) finding that NCA was related to A (within-class r = -0.52) is not relevant to the mediatio; issue because the experimental manipulations had no effect on A (see Wright 1974a).1 However, Wright (1974a) did find evidence that NSA mediated RI. Sternthal, Dholakia, and Leavitt (1978) obtained inconsistent evidence for the mediating effects of cognitive response. In two experiments, Sternthal et al. manipulated the credibility (high and moderate) of the source of a message. In the first study, they also controlled whether subjects were informed of the source before or after message exposure. The effects of these two treatments were reflected by measures of NSA, NCA, NSD, A o ' and RI. In the first stu~y, subjects' preexposure attitudes toward the message tOPIC were favorable. The predicted interaction effect of Credibility and Time on both NCA and NSA was marginally significant and was statistically reliable for Ao and RI. Moreover, two analyses of covariance (ANCOVA), using first NCA and then NSA as covariates, reduced the interaction effect on Ao for both covariates (RI effects were not reported). These results are consistent with the hypothesized mediation effect of cognitive responses on attitude (Model 3). Unfortunately, these results cannot provide highly compelling evidence for the causal mediation hy-

tWhy then was a strong negative relationship between NCA and Ao obtained? One possibility is that a negative preexposure A (toward artificial meat products), along with its underlying belief stru~ture, was activated by message exposure and caused NCA, while the involvement manipulation merely facilitated the production of those CA. If we assume the message had no effects on Ao' then the postexposure measure of Ao would not be changed from the negative preexposure Ao and thus would be negatively correlated with NCA.

248


pothesis because the CA and SA measures were taken after Ao and BI had been measured. In the second study, Sternthal et al. ordered their postexposure measurements consistent with Model 4. In this study, however, the credibility treatment had no significant main effects on NCA, NSA, or Ao (BI was not measured). The authors examined simple main effects of credibility within each of two subgroups of subjects representing initially favorable and unfavorable opinions on the topic, even though the interaction effect of Credibility X Initial Opinion was not analyzed (it appears likely to be significant). For initially favorable subjects, credibility affected Ao and NSA, but had no effect on NCA. Using NSA.as a covariate eliminated the credibility effect on Ao. This is fairly strong evidence that NSAmediated Ao. However, for the initially unfavorable subjects, credibility affected A o ' but had no effect on NCA or NSA. This evidence is inconsistent with the causal mediating role of cognitive response. In sum, only part of the Sternthal et al. results support the central mediational notion of cognitive response theory. In contrast to the consumer behavior literature, the empirical evidence from social psychology is more compelling. Most researchers obtained significant communication treatment effects on both cognitive responses and cognitive structure variables, usually Ao. Most also found significant correlations between NCA and/or NSA and Ao. Several researchers reported even more convincing evidence by removing, through analyses of covariance, the effect due to CA and/or SA from the Ao effect produced by the message. If NCA and/or NSA mediate the message effect on A o ' the ANCOV A should substantially reduce that effect as evidenced by a reduced, ideally nonsignificant F ratio for the Ao main effect. Cook (1969), Osterhouse and Brock (1970), Insko, Turnbull, and Yandell (1974), Petty, Wells, and Brock (1976), Petty and Cacioppo (1977), and Cacioppo and Petty (1979), among others, found that removing the variance in Ao that was associated with cognitive responding (usually counterarguing) eliminated or dramatically reduced the significant message effect(s) on attitude.

OVERVIEW This study tests whether cognitive responses mediate the effects of varying information in brand advertisements on belief, attitude, and intention elements of cognitive structure. As is obvious from past research, several types of evidence can be used to demonstrate that cognitive responses mediate effects of a message on beliefs and/or other cognitive structure variables (cf. Wright 1980). First, it is necessary to obtain significant message effects on both cognitive response and cognitive structure variables (parallel treatment effects). Also, significant correlations between cognitive response indicators and measures of the cognitive structure elements should be obtained. Finally, the message effects on cognitive structure variables should be reduced (ideally eliminated) when the presumed mediating effect of cognitive response is statistically removed through covari-

ance analysis. In this research, we used all three types of evidence to establish the mediating effects of cognitive responses. Although the present research is similar to the social psychology approach, there are four major differences. First, fairly involving topics were examined in most psychology studies. For instance, Petty and Cacioppo (1977) presented college students with messages advocating that their graduation be contingent upon passing a comprehensive exam in their declared major. In contrast, the present study, like most consumer behavior studies (e. g., Wright 1973, or Edell and Mitchell 1978), concerned a topic presumably lower in involvement. Lower levels of topic involvement may create less motivation to cognitively respond to a message (Roberts and Maccoby 1973). (Since nearly all of the past studies were laboratory experiments involving forced exposure and fairly reactive thought recording procedures, we presume that subjects' levels of task involvement in following the experimental directions were uniformly high and roughly equivalent across studies.) Second, the present study concerns the formation of cognitive structure elements rather than changing existing cognitive elements, which has been the focus in most of the social psychology research. Because our messages concerned an unfamiliar brand, we probably created, rather than changed, product-specific beliefs and attitudes. Third, unlike most previous cognitive response research, this study measured several cognitive structure elements, including multiple beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intention, instead of only attitude. The fourth way in which the present study differs from previous work concerns the manipulated treatment variables (see Wright 1980 for a thorough review). Many researchers have focused on effects on cognitive responding and message acceptance due to characteristics of the message exposure environment such as noise or other distractions (cf. Osterhouse and Brock 1970; Petty, Wells, and Brock 1976). Other investigators have examined the effects of messages delivered via alternative media (cf. Krugman 1968; Wright 1974a). Few researchers, however, have examined the effects of message content by varying the information contained in the communication or the style of its presentation. (In one exception, Calder, Insko, and Yandell (1974) investigated the effects of varying the number and type of arguments contained in a communication.) Yet from the applied perspective of creating and testing advertisements, and from an information processing theoretical perspective, one could argue that the actual information contained in the advertisement is of primary interest. We manipulated two aspects of product information. These variations in advertisement content were expected to affect both cognitive responses and cognitive structure elements, particularly beliefs. Thus, the present research provided a direct test of the critical feature of the joint model represented in Model 4-namely, that cognitive responses mediate the effects of advertising content on cognitive structure.

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METHODS Experimental Design Two aspects of the information about a new brand of ball-point pen were selected for manipulation-price level and amount of attribute information. Advertisements were created which communicated (a) one of five different price levels, 29¢, 49¢, 79¢, $1.49, or $3.95, and (b) one of two amounts of product information, price information only or price plus additional information about other salient (nonprice) attributes of the pen. Thus the design was a 5 x 2, randomized-groups factorial involving five levels of price and two levels of amount of information about the product. Each subject saw one of 10 advertisements representing the different treatment combinations. Following exposure, their cognitive responses or thoughts about the ad were recorded, and measures of the cognitive structure elements were taken. We used a posttest-only design because the brand of pen was unfamiliar and most subjects had no brand-specific beliefs prior to exposure to the ads. 2 Thus it was not possible to obtain preexposure measures of beliefs or attitudes toward this brand. Therefore, this was a study of belief and attitude formation, not change (cf. Carnegie-Mellon Marketing Seminar 1978; Lutz 1978). An advantage of this design was that subjects were not sensitized by pretest measurements.

Product and Subjects Two factors influenced the choice of ball-point ink pens as the focal product in this research. First, pilot interviews indicated that target subjects possessed a relatively simple cognitive structure for ball-point pens in terms of the number of salient product attributes. Thus, the complexity of the necessary measurements was kept within reasonable limits. Second, a relatively new, fairly inexpensive pen possessing several unusual features recently had been introduced in the local market and was still unfamiliar to nearly all subjects. Although not identified here, the actual brand name was used throughout the study. The pen sold for 79¢ in most retail stores. Because ball-point pens have a high usage rate among college students (subjects in this sample estimated they used ball-point pens for 80 percent of their writing), a student population was considered relevant and appropriate for this research. Subjects were 159 undergraduate students of both sexes who were recruited from introductory business courses. Subjects signed a scheduling form to participate in one of the 10 experimental sessions, one for each of the 10 treatment conditions. To demonstrate that this sign-up procedure produced an essentially "random assignment" of subjects to treatments, ANOVAs were run on several

2Six subjects who indicated in their cognitive responses that they had either heard of or had used the pen in question were dropped from the original sample of 165 subjects.

descriptive variables such as sex, pen usage, average price of typical pen bought, and so on. No significant treatment effects were obtained. Subjects were paid $2.00 for their participation. The part of the study reported in this paper required approximately 15-20 minutes.

Advertisements Ten black and white, high-quality print ads were created by our University's Graphic Arts Services Department. Each ad corresponded to one treatment combination in the research design. Centered at the top of each ad in large type was the brand name followed by the headline, "Introducing the New ______ Ball Point Pen." In the center of each ad was an identical ink drawing of the pen. The experimental manipUlations of Price Level and Amount of Product Information were accomplished by varying the information contained in the ads. The price level was printed in large type and presented in the lower right corner of each ad, e.g., "Only 29¢" or "Only $3.95. " No information about other product attributes was contained in the five price-only ads. For the ads representing the five price-plus-additional-information conditions, four other product features were briefly described in the lower left comer. These included (a) the construction details of the ball-point tip, (b) the tungsten carbide ball and thin, free-flowing ink, (c) the attractive design, and (d) the comfort of using the pen.

Procedures After being seated at tables in the research room, the subjects in each treatment condition were told that the study concerned their reactions to some promotional material for a new ball-point pen. To meet University regulations, subjects then signed an informed consent form certifying their voluntary decision to participate. Following this, subjects completed a two-page questionnaire regarding their general knowledge of and purchase behavior towards ball-point pens and the perceived importance of several pen attributes. Next, subjects were told that a mock-up version of an advertisement for the new ball-point pen (not yet named) had been obtained for study by the researchers. This ad was described as one that might be used as a point-of-purchase poster, perhaps on a store countertop. Then each subject was handed a black and white, 8Y2 x 11 inch photocopy of the ad and told to examine it as if they saw it in a store. After exactly two minutes, subjects were asked to tum the ad face down on the table. Then they were verbally instructed to write "all the things that came to mind as you read the ad" on the blank sheet of paper next in the questionnaire. To reduce the possibility of subjects generating thoughts in response to the protocol task itself, subjects were given just two minutes in which to record their cognitive responses. Then they were told to tum to the next page and begin responding to the postexposure questionnaire.

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To separate the measurement of the cognitive responses from the measures of cognitive structure, and to support the experimental guise, the first page of the questionnaire contained six evaluative, semantic-differential scales and two open-ended questions regarding reactions to the advertisement. This was followed by the measures of cognitive structure. At the conclusion of the study subjects were debriefed, during which the deceptions (i.e., the incorrect prices) were thoroughly explained and justified. Then subjects were paid and dismissed.

Dependent Variables The elements of cognitive structure discussed in this paper were those identified most clearly with structural models of attitudes (cf. Fishbein and Ajzen 1975), as represented in terms of the causal relationships proposed in Models 1 and 4. The bi' ei , A act , BI, and Ao cognitive structure elements were measured in that order. Because the belief elements were so important to this research, the measures of belief strength (b) and evaluation (e) were based on tpe vector model advocated by Ahtola (1975). A major contribution of Ahtola's modification of the Fishbein expectancy-value model lies in its more precise identification of the belief concepts that are used by consumers to cognitively represent product attributes. In Ahtola's view a product attribute is conceptualized as a dimension that, for a given subject, contains two or more discriminable levels or amounts of the attribute. In comprehending (encoding) information about a product attribute, a consumer "assigns" the product or brand to one or more of the discriminable levels along that attribute dimension. The categories selected are the consumer's cognitive representation of that attribute information. From this perspective, each attribute category or level represents a discriminable belief, and thus possesses a belief strength (b) and an evaluative aspect (e). For example, a wine might be perceived in terms of a sweet-dry dimension. If one is positively certain that a particular wine is slightly sweet, then the bi for that level or category should be maximal and the b;'s for the other levels should be zero. Another wine might be categorized as probably "dry," but with a small perceived chance of being "slightly sweet," while a third wine might be encoded as definitely "sweet." The Ahtola approach suggests that with product experience, people learn the relevant category levels of salient attribute dimensions. This implies that cognitive structure research should focus on identifying the discriminable attribute levels that are used by subjects to encode the meaning of a particular stimulus such as a brand. In pilot interviews with several undergraduate students, seven attributes about ball-point pens and pen buying were mentioned most frequently-price, ink flow consistency, comfort, appearance, ease of writing, writing quality, and value for the money. These attributes were considered to be modally salient for this subject population. Discriminable categories, levels, or amounts of each attribute were identified based partially on subjects' comments and partially on experi-


menter intuition. 3 The number of cognitive levels varied from four to eight-four attributes had four levels, two had five levels, and one (price) had eight levels. Subjects indicated the strengths of their beliefs about the seven attributes of the ball-point pen described in the advertisement. They assigned 10 points to the several levels or categories along each attribute (e.g., very good, good, average, poor, and very poor value for the money) such that the number of points indicated their strength of belief that the pen possessed each attribute level. That is, belief strength was measured on a 1O-point, constant-sum scale. Subjects also rated their evaluation of each attribute level using a seven-point bipolar scale, coded + 3 to -3 and labeled good and bad. Using the logic of the expectancyvalue model, one can obtain an index of the evaluation associated with each brand attribute by summing the bie i products over the several category levels of each attribute dimension to yield a vector score of evaluation ('Lbie). An index of the overall evaluation associated with the entire belief structure was created by summing the seven vector/ attribute scores ('L'Lbije i). Attitudes toward the pen brand (Ao) and attitudes toward the act of buying the pen (A act) were measured by the mean of three five-point evaluative scales, following Fishbein's recommendations (1967). The Ao scales were labeled good-bad, high quality-low quality, and like-dislike, while the Aact scales were labeled foolish-wise, good-bad, and harmful-beneficial. Intentions to purchase a pen for one's own personal use on the next shopping trip (BI) were measured on a single five-point scale (not likely-very likely to buy).

Classifying Cognitive Response Measures Subjects' handwritten cognitive responses to the various ads were typed and independently classified by two of the authors (JeD and DRT), who agreed on 87 percent of the judgments. All inconsistencies were resolved by discussion. The "classic," persuasion-oriented cognitive response categories were used to categorize the thoughts that subjects reported experiencing during ad exposure. These included counterargument, support argument, and source derogation. There were no source derogation thoughts, which was reasonable since a source was not identified. Thus, the cognitive response types of major interest were counterargument and support argument, both of which have been shown in past research to have the strongest mediating effects on attitude. Briefly, counterarguments were indicated by statements directed against (that disagree or clash with) the product in general, its use, or a specific claim or idea contained in the ad. Support arguments were indicated by statements in favor of (that agree with) the product, its use, or

30bviously, this procedure involved a great deal of subjectivity. Since this study was conducted, the authors and their colleagues have developed more structured and therefore more replicable methods for determining salient attributes and their discriminable levels (see Olson and Muderrisoglu 1979; Toy 1982).


a specific claim or idea in the ad. 4 In addition, several other types of cognitive responses were identified, including (a) curiosity statements-general thoughts evidencing curiosity regarding product characteristics, (b) positive or negative ad-related statements-thoughts about positive or negative aspects of the advertisement, and (c) neutral thoughtsevaluatively neutral statements. Because the relevance of these latter thoughts to the persuasive communication process is not established by the cognitive response/cognitive structure model, they were aggregated for analysis and termed "number of other thoughts" (NOT).

RESULTS A convincing experimental test of the mediating effects of cognitive responses on belief and other elements of cognitive structure requires that the manipulations of communication factors produce statistically significant parallel effects on at least some measures of cognitive structure and cognitive response. Once it has been shown that variation in these variables is caused by the treatment conditions, subsequent analysis can examine the "mediation flow" among them. The focus of this paper is on whether or not cognitive responses mediate advertising content effects on various cognitive structure variables, not on the exact nature of these treatment effects per se. Thus, we are not concerned with presenting the specific details of the treatment effects on the cognitive structure and cognitive response variables, beyond establishing that significant effects were obtained. However, the treatment cell means for the variables analyzed in this research are presented in Table 1, from which the reader can construct any effects of interest.

Advertisement Content Effects Ad Content Effects on Brand Beliefs. First, we must identify the effects of the ad content manipulations on cognitive structure elements, beginning with beliefs. A problem in using the Ahtola (1975) constant-sum procedure for representing belief strengths is that each vector of bi scores is constrained to sum to 10. Because of the direct mathematical relationship between the belief levels in each vector, these scores produce a singular data matrix; thus it is not possible to directly test the effects of ad information on 'We used the criteria forCA and SA proposed by Wright (1973), except for one change. We obtained a few general pro (n = 4) and con (n = 3) statements such as "sounds good" and "didn't impress me" from seven subjects (4.4 percent of the total sample). These thoughts were classified as either support arguments or counterarguments. Although the referent of the thought was not explicitly mentioned, these thoughts seemed to refer to particular attributes (or sets of attributes) of the pen, given the specific context in which they were embedded. Based on this interpretation, they were classified as CA or SA. However, if these thoughts are considered to be general affective statements about the pen, they could be interpreted as indicators of "global attitude" toward the pen. Then such thoughts should not be included as CA or SA (see Wright 1980). Ambiguity in classifying cognitive responses is a common operational problem that needs to be addressed in future research. It should be noted that the results of this study are insensitive to this particular coding issue, since only 1.4 percent of all cognitive responses were involved.

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the vector of bi scores. Therefore, the ad content effects on beliefs were indicated by the 'J:.bie i vector scores, which represent the overall evaluation associated with each brand attribute/dimension. Note that observed variation in the ~ b,ei scores could be due to the effects of message content on either (or both) the b i or the ei scores. However, we expected that the type of product information manipulated here would affect only belief strength and not evaluations of the beliefs. To check whether the two ad content manipulations may have affected the ei ratings, a 5 x 2 (price by amount of information) MANOV A was run on each of the seven vectors of ei ratings. 5 In these analyses, only one of 21 multivariate main and interaction effects was significant (p < 0.05). Of the 99 univariate tests, only two were significant (p < 0.05). Five significant effects would be expected by chance alone. Thus, we have inferred that any ad content effects on the 'J:.bie i vector scores are due solely to the treatment influences on the belief strength rating. Another 5 x 2 MANOV A was run in which the seven belief vector scores ('J:.b,.e i, see Table I) served as dependent variables and the two ad content treatments were the independent variables. The multivariate interaction effect was not significant. However, main effects of Price Level and Amount of Product Information on the set of belief vector scores were obtained (F = 2.43, df = 28,584, P < 0.01; and F = 1.99, df = 7,143, P = 0.06, respectively), although the latter was only marginally significant. Subsequent univariate ANOV As showed that, except for the value-for-the-money attribute, the price and amount-ofinformation manipUlations influenced beliefs about different product attributes (see columm 1 of Table 2). Only two beliefs, "comfortable to use" and "attractiveness," were unaffected by either information treatment. As would be expected, Price Level had an effect on the perceived cost of the pen. This measure can be considered as an operational manipulation check on the price level treatment, in that scores reflect whether subjects noted and remembered the price of the pen. They did-virtually perfectly. In contrast, and as expected, Amount of Product Information had no main effects on this belief (see columm 1 of Table 2). Rather, Amount of Product Information influenced beliefs about the consistency of ink flow, the ease and smoothness of writing, and the writing quality of the pen. For these attributes, the presence of additional nonprice information produced stronger beliefs that the pen possessed the more favorable levels of each attribute vector. These main effects were to be expected, if subjects believed 5Following the advice of C. Olson (1976), the PiIlai-Bartlett trace V approximation of the multivariate F statistic was used. Olson recommended the Pillai procedure over three alternatives as more powerful and more robust (especially given violation of homogeneity of covariance matrices). Also, if the multivariate ANOVA model assumptions are violated, the Pillai V is least likely to produce highly inflated Type I error rates. The Hottelling-Lawley trace T and Wilk's likelihood ratio W give comparable levels of power and robustness if the df for error is at least to times the number of dependent variables greater than df for the effect being tested. Since this criterion was not quite reached in the present data, the Pillai-Bartlett approximation was adopted as a conservative approach.

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THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH TABLE 1

CELL MEANS FOR MAJOR VARIABLES

Variables in study

Price level 79¢

49¢

29¢ Price plus other Price only attributes (n = 15) (n = 15)

$1.49

$3.95

Amount of product information Price plus Price plus Price plus other other other Price only attributes Price only attributes Price only attributes (n = 17) (n = 17) (n = 17) (n = 16) (n = 15) (n = 15)

Price plus other Price only attributes (n = 17) (n = 15)

Belief vector scores (~biei) Consistency of ink flow Comfortable to use Attractive appearance Perceived price Easy and smooth writing Neat and attractive writing quality Value for the money

6.67

9.20

10.18

8.47

6.82

15.25

2.73

16.87

12.47

15.80

10.73

15.87

8.06

8.76

11.18

7.00

6.00

12.40

8.59

12.27

8.13

8.00

3.76

2.47

9.12

9.31

4.67

4.27

5.82

5.27

12.00

15.73

14.65

17.94

10.06

11.12

5.40

9.20

5.41

-3.53

13.27

19.13

18.59

14.24

16.41

18.69

13.87

19.87

12.59

20.60

3.73

7.67

8.06

8.35

5.94

10.12

4.67

12.53

9.12

13.80

15.00

21.07

14.41

14.06

9.06

10.81

5.93

12.87

-8.12

4.27

69.53 3.57 3.27 3.40

96.67 3.81 3.71 3.87

77.71 3.45 3.49 2.82

74.29 3.38 3.35 2.88

68.59 3.45 3.30 2.71

82.31 3.69 3.77 2.47

43.27 3.52 3.37 2.47

88.00 3.69 3.71 3.13

45.88 3.38 3.28 1.64

68.47 3.77 3.97 2.00

.20 .40 1.33

.33 1.20 1.00

.53 .53 2.53

.88 .65 2.00

.65 1.12 2.12

1.47 .88 .88

.93 .40 1.60

.60 1.67 .93

1.18 .12 1.76

1.47 .33 .93

Other cognitive structure elements ~~bijeij

Aact Ao BI Cognitive response indices NCAa NSAa NOTa

aNCA ~ number of counterarguments; NSA ~ number of support arguments; NOT ~ number of other thoughts.

the message, since these three attributes were explicitly described in the five advertisements containing additional attribute information. In addition, both Price Level and Amount of Product Information had significant main effects on beliefs about the value-for-the-money attribute (see the first column of Table 2). Finally, neither ad content manipulation had significant effects on beliefs about two of the seven product attributes-"attractiveness" and "comfortable to use "-even though "comfort" was one of the four product characteristics explicitly mentioned in the additional information ads. Perhaps subjects in those conditions did not believe the message that the pen was quite comfortable to use. Beliefs about comfort and attractiveness may be more strongly affected by actual experience with the product (seeing and using the product) than by verbal statements in an ad. Or perhaps the information inherent in the ink drawing of the

pen prominent in all ads caused equivalent beliefs about the pen's appearance and comfort. Finally, it should be noted that the lack of significant ad content effects on comfort and appearance beliefs due to Amount of Product Information provides some indirect evidence against a simple demand-characteristics explanation that subjects were simply "echoing" the written ad content in their belief strength ratings. In sum, the manipulation of information content in the ads had significant and varied effects on attribute beliefs about the advertised pen. Next, we consider the effects of the advertised information on the more global evaluative elements of cognitive structure. Ad Content Effects on Attitudes and Intention. A 5 X 2 MANOV A was run on a set of dependent variables consisting of 'L'Lbijeij' A act ' A o ' and BI, with Price Level and

253

COGNITIVE RESPONSE MEDIATORS TABLE 2

RESULTS OF ANOVA AND ANCOVA TESTS ON THOSE BELIEFS AFFECTED BY PRICE LEVEL (A) AND AMOUNT OF PRODUCT INFORMATION (B) Univariate ANOVA and ANCOVA models Belief vector scores Y

No covariate

= Ib,e,

Y

=

A+B+AB

NCAc Y

=

=

covariate

NCA+A+B+AB

NSAc Y

=

=

covariate

NSA+A+B+AB

Main effects of A: Price level (df Perceived price

F

(J}

F 002

F

5.04b .092 (-9%)

4.06b .082 ( -19%)

10.19b .181

7.22b .119 ( -34%)

9.26b .162 ( -10%)

7.23b .119 (-34%)

F 002

F 002

4.53b .021 (-40%)

6.29b .031 ( -11%)

5.17" .026

5.88" .030 (+ 15%)

2.95 .012 (-54%)

4.61" .022 (-15%)

4.60" .023

5.96" .030 ( +32%)

3.33 .015 ( -42%)

4.10" .019 ( -27%)

6.54" .027

8.33" .035 ( +30%)

4.85" .019 ( -30%)

5.93" .024 ( -11%)

%~oo2

Value for the money

F 00 2

%~oo2 "p < 0.05

bp

< 0.01

cNCA

1/147)

7.61b .039 (+ 11%)

%~oo2

Writing quality (no skips)

=

6.87b .035

%~oo2

Easy and smooth writing

(NSA-NCA)+A+B+AB

4/147)

Main effects of B: Amount of product information (df 00 2

=

covariate

5.00b .092 (-9%)

%~oo2

Consistency of ink flow

Y

=

5.42b .101

%~oo2

Value for the money

=

NSA - NCA

= number of counterarguments; NSA = number of support arguments.

Amount of Product Information serving as the independent variables. Both manipulated factors had significant multivariate main effects on these cognitive elements (F = 3.47, df = 16,592, P < 0.01; and F = 3.76, df = 4,145, p < 0.01, respectively). The multivariate interaction effect did not approach statistical reliability. The significant effects obtained in the follow-up univariate 5 x 2 ANOVAs are summarized in the first column of Table 3. Price Level affected only one of the four dependent variables, BI. As would be expected, intentions to purchase decreased across the five price levels. Amount of Product Information had significant univariate main effects on the other three global, evaluative, cognitive elements'£'£b;l!ij' Aact , and Ao (see first column of Table 3). As one would expect, the presence of additional positive information about nonprice product attributes caused a significant increase in evaluation for all three variables. In sum, the two information manipulations of ad content had significant and varied impacts on the more global elements of cognitive structure.

Ad Content Effects on Cognitive Responses. To test whether the manipulations of message content also affected subjects' cognitive responses, a 5 x 2 MANOVA was

conducted in which Price Level and Amount of Product Information served as between-subjects factors. The dependent variables were NCA, NSA, and NOT (NOT = sum of NARS, PARS, NS, and CS). Both Price Level and Amount of Product Information.had significant multivariate main effects on these cognitive response measures (F = 4.54, df = 12,447, p < 0.01; and F = 5.29, df = 3,147, p < 0.01, respectively). The interaction effect was not significant. Univariate ANOV As revealed that Price Level had a significant main effect on NCA (F = 5.45; df = 4,149; P < 0.01), on NSA (F = 3.80; df = 4,149; p < 0.01), and on NOT (F = 4.60; df = 4,149; p < 0.01). In general, NCA increased from lower to high prices. As price increased, the NSA per subject first increased, then decreased. The NOT was highest for the 49¢ price, while the other price levels were not significantly different from one another. Amount of Product Information had main effects on NSA (F = 7.17; df = 1,149; p < 0.01) and on NOT (F = 7.00; df = 1,149; p < 0.01). When the ads contained additional product information besides price, the mean NSA increased from 0.52 to 1.03, while NOT decreased from 1.89 to 1.17. In retrospect, these effects of information

254

THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH TABLE 3

RESULTS OF ANOVA AND ANCOVA TESTS ON THOSE COGNITIVE ELEMENTS AFFECTED BY PRICE LEVEL (A) AND AMOUNT OF PRODUCT INFORMATION (B) Univariate ANOVA and ANCOVA models Cognitive structure elements Y

No covariate

NCAc = covariate

NSAc = covariate

NSA - NCA = covariate

Y = A+B+AB

Y = NCA+A+B+AB

Y = NSA+A+B+AB

Y = (NSA-NCA)+A+B+AB

Main effects of A: Price level (df = 4/147) F

BI

00 2

%.1002

10.80b .198

7.48b .128 ( -35%)

9.64b .170 ( -14%)

7.18b .119 (-40%)

Main effects of B: Amount of product information (df = 1/147) F2

IIb'Jeij

00

%.100 2 F

A"",

002

%.100 2 F

00 2

%.100 2 .p < 0.05

bp

7:~g~ 4.00· .019 14.09b .076

4.g~

6.~g;5

( +26%)

( -47%)

( -13%)

4.34· .021 (+5%)

2.31 .008 (-79%)

3.63 .010 ( -74%)

16.31b .104 (+37%)

8.81b .041 (-46%)

13.65b .067 ( -12%)

9:8R~

< 0.01 cNCA = number of counterarguments; NSA = number of support arguments.

about additional nonprice product attributes seem reasonable. Favorable thoughts regarding an unknown brand are difficult to produce when one has very little information (price information only), but may be facilitated by descriptions of additional attributes. Also, NOT would be expected to be higher (e.g., more curiosity thoughts) when little specific product information is contained in the ads. To summarize, the ad content manipulations produced significant differences in the type and magnitude of cognitive responses-especially in NCA and NSA, the two thought types of major interest here. As demonstrated earlier, the treatment variables also had significant effects on nearly all measured elements of cognitive structure. Thus, the results have met the critical parallel treatment condition necessary for examining the mediation effects of cognitive responses. That is, each significant treatment effect on a cognitive structure variable was mirrored by the same treatment effect on at least one cognitive response variable. Next, we examine the relationships between both types of effects.

Relationships Between Cognitive Responses and Cognitive Structure Elements If cognitive responses do mediate the effects of product information on elements of cognitive structure, we should find significant correlations between those cognitive responses and the cognitive structure elements that are presumably influenced. Such associations would support the

mediation hypothesis, but alone would not constitute an unambiguous "test" of causal mediation. Table 4 presents the zero-order correlations between NCA, NSA, and NOT and the various elements of cognitive structure, computed across all experimental treatment conditions, as well as the within-cell correlations. The former are influenced by the treatment manipulations, while the latter are not, as the treatment effects have been statistically removed (i.e., partialled out). As expected, NCA was consistently correlated negatively with the cognitive structure elements, whereas NSA had consistent positive associations with the cognitive structure variables. However, the zeroorder correlations were weak; all were less than r = 0.32. NOT was not correlated with any of the 11 cognitive elements, also as expected. It is of interest that NSA was more strongly related to the cognitive structure variables that reflect overall evaluation of the product-LLbijeij' Ao ' Aactthan was NCA. NSA was also more closely associated with a larger number of beliefs about product attributes (belief vector scores) than was NCA. The within-cell correlations mirror these relationships closely, indicating that the experimental treatments did not affect the magnitude or direction of these associations. In sum, these correlational data are consistent with the notion that cognitive responses mediate message effects on cognitive structure. However, they suggest that the magnitudes of those mediating effects were somewhat limited in the present study. In comparison with the zero-order correlations obtained by Wright (1973), the present rela-


255 TABLE 4

CORRELATIONS BElWEEN COGNITIVE RESPONSE TYPES AND COGNITIVE STRUCTURE VARIABLES Zero-order correlations·

Within-cell correlationsb

NCAa

NSAo

NOT"

NCA

NSA

NOT

Belief vector scores (Ib,e,) Consistency of ink flow Comfortable to use Attractive appearance Perceived cost Easy, smooth writing Writing quality Value for the money

-.02 -.14 .01 -.09 -.OS -.10 -.2S d

.17c .11 .13 .15 .23d .11 .21d

-.07 .03 -.12 -.01 -.05 .15 .02

-.10 - .11 .04 .00 -.09 -.16c -.19 c

.16c .07 .12 .11 .19c .10 .11

.00 .07 -.10 -.09 -.03 .21d -.01

Brand evaluation indices IIb'leij Aac1 Ao BI

-.20 c -.05 -.09 -.31d

.29d .19c .30d .27d

.00 -.06 -.09 .09

-.16c -.06 -.16c -.17"

.22d .16c .30d .19c

.02 .01 -.01 .12

Elements of cognitive structure

"Correlations across treatment condttions. n = 159. These correlations are influenced by the experimental manipulations. beorrelatlons adjusted for treatment effects, n = 159. These are partial correlations, with the treatment effects of the correlated variables removed. cp < 0.05 dp < 0.Q1 "NCA = number of counterarguments; NSA = number of support arguments; NOT = number of other thoughts.

tionships are substantially weaker. Wright reported intraclass correlations between NCA and Ao of - 0.52 and between NCA and BI of -0.48, compared to the present - 0.16 and - 0.17, respectively (within-cell correlations between NSA and Ao and NSA and BI were not reported by Wright). Edell and Mitchell (1978), using an experimental situation similar to our design, obtained zero-order correlations between NCA and Aacl' A o' and BI of - 0.34, -0.29, and -0.44, respectively, again stronger than the present correlations. However, we found relationships between NSA and Aacp A o' and BI to be stronger than those reported by Edell and Mitchell. In general, then, the degree of association found here is similar to, but somewhat weaker than that obtained in other consumer behavior studies. Of course, it must be kept in mind that specific differences in relationships will be influenced by a host of differences between the studies, not least of which is the discrepancy of the message from subjects' preexposure beliefs (Toy 1982).

Covariance Analyses of Cognitive Response Mediation The analyses reported thus far produced data consistent with the hypothesized mediation effect of cognitive responses. Combined with the experimentally produced effects on both cognitive structure and cognitive responses, the correlations substantiate the presumed mediating effects of cognitive responses. Additional evidence for the degree to which cognitive responses may mediate the effect of advertised product information on cognitive structure elements can be provided by a series of covariance analyses. This procedure has been thoroughly discussed by Insko et al. (1974) and has been used in the consumer research lit-

erature to investigate this issue (Stemthal et al. 1978). The logic involved is as follows. If a cognitive response does mediate the effects of product information on elements of cognitive structure, then including measures of that cognitive response as a covariate in an analysis of variance of the informational effects on cognitive structure should reduce the magnitude of those informational treatment effects on cognitive structure. If the cognitive response is the sale mediator, the significant effects of the ad information manipulations (documented earlier) should be eliminated by the cognitive response covariate. That is, the treatment effect should become small and statistically nonsignificant. Note that this analysis cannot be legitimately interpreted as evidence for mediation unless the treatments affect both the covariate and the criterion variable. That is, all the variance should be experimentally produced. As we have documented above, the two ad content manipulations had significant differential effects on both the NCA and NSA cognitive responses and on selected cognitive structure variables-several '2:.b j ej scores, '2:.'2:.bijeij' A ac" A o ' and BI. Thus, these experimental results provide the basis for a relatively strong test of the mediating influence of cognitive response. Since only NCA and NSA were correlated with cognitive elements, they were the only possible covariates. The assumption (supported by the correlation analysis) is that although NOT was influenced by the treatments, NOT did not mediate the message effects on cognitive structure variables. The belief vector scores ('2:. ble) were analyzed as a set, as were the four global cognitive structure variables. For each set, three multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVA) were conducted. First, NCA and NSA were used as single covariates and then both were included as dual covariates in a third analysis using the index NSA - NCA, advocated by Wright (1973).

256

Tables 2 and 3 summarize the results of the univariate ANOV As and ANCOV As of the cognitive structure variables that were conducted after obtaining a significant multivariate effect. To simplify the tables somewhat, results are shown for only those cognitive elements that were originally influenced by the treatment manipulations. Since we never obtained any significant interaction effects (either multivariate or univariate), these results are not shown. Three indices of the mediating effect of each cognitive response type are presented-the univariate F ratios, the estimated (1)2 (proportion of variance accounted for), and the percentage change in (1)2 due to the apparent mediating effect of each covariate. To the extent that the first two indices are reduced by the covariate/mediator, evidence for mediation is produced. The third index provides a measure of the magnitude of the mediation effect. Brand Attribute Beliefs. Table 2 presents the evidence for cognitive response mediation of brand attribute beliefs. These indices show that NCA and NSA had apparent mediating effects on the formation of beliefs about different product attributes. For instance, removing the effect due to NCA reduced the multivariate F for the main effect of Price Level somewhat (from F = 2.43 to 2.18, both p's < 0.01). The major mediating effect of NCA was on subjects' beliefs regarding the pen's value for the money, where the univariate F decreased from 10. 19 to 7.22 (a 34 percent drop in (1)2 from 0.181 to 0.119). NSA had a weaker mediation effect, and combining the two cognitive response types had no stronger mediating effect than NCA alone. It is important to note that including either NCA or NSA as covariates did not eliminate the effects of Price Level on value-forthe-money beliefs. Price information still had significant effects on belief strength, and the magnitude of those effects, as estimated by (1)2, remained at moderate levels (compared to other effects in this study). In contrast, NSA was stronger than NCA in mediating the effects of Amount of Product Information. In fact, NCA had no mediating role. Note that using NCA as a covariate increased the magnitude of effects due to Amount of Product Information (probably because NCA accounted for certain variance previously attributed to error). Actually, NCA is inappropriate as a covariate because Amount of Product Information had no significant effects on NCA, but we present these results for the sake of completeness. The marginally significant main effect of Amount of Product Information was removed by including NSA as a covariate (the multivariate F was reduced from 1.99 to 1.53, p = 0.06 and 0.16, respectively). These data suggest that only support arguing mediates the effects of Amount of Product Information on belief formation, which is consistent with the earlier finding that only NSA was influenced by this treatment. The results of the univariate ANOV As in Table 2 show this clearly. For beliefs about ease and smoothness of writing and overall writing quality, NSA reduced the previously significant main effect of additional information to marginally significant levels (both p's < 0.06). In both cases, the proportion of variance accounted


for by Amount of Product Information fell substantially when NSA was the covariate (a(l)2 = - 54 percent and -42 percent). Including NSA as a covariate also reduced the effects of Amount of Product Information on beliefs about the consistency of ink flow and value for the money, but not to nonsignificant levels «1)2 fell by 40 percent and 30 percent, respectively). However, even though NSA seemed to consistently mediate from 30 to 50 percent or more of the impact of extra product information on beliefs about all four affected product attributes, NSA apparently did not completely mediate the belief formation/message acceptance process for any of these four beliefs. In summary, both NCA and NSA appeared to serve as partial mediators of the effects of Price Level Information on two brand beliefs, while only NSA mediated the effects of Amount of Product Information on four beliefs. Moreover, the specific beliefs affected by each treatment and the relative mediating effects of CA and SA on particular beliefs are logically consistent with the information content that was manipulated. Global Brand Evaluation and Intention Measures. Much the same pattern of results was obtained for the more general brand evaluation constructs-attitudes and purchase intention. Table 3 summarizes the results of the univariate 5 x 2 ANOV As and ANCOV As. Again, significant interaction effects were not obtained, and therefore are not reported. NCA seemed to be a stronger mediator of price level effects than NSA. The multivariate main effect of Price Level was reduced most by the NCA covariate (F = 3.47 to 2.93, p < 0.01). Price Level had only one significant univariate main effect, on BI, and this effect was reduced most (from F = 10.80 to 7.48; df = 4,147; both p < 0.01) by including NCA as a covariate «1)2 was reduced from 0.198 to 0.128). Using the difference between NSA and NCA as a covariate accounted for only slightly more variance in BI than did NCA alone. Amount of Product Information had a significant multivariate main effect on the vector of global evaluative measures. Only NSA had a role in mediating these effects. When NSA was used as a covariate, the multivariate F was reduced from 3.76 (df = 4,145; p < 0.01) to 2.41 (df = 1,144; p < 0.06). As shown in Table 3, the univariate F's for the three attitude variables mirror this apparent mediating effect of NSA. For each variable, NSA substantially reduced the percent of variance accounted for by the manipulation of Amount of Product Information. These apparent mediating effects were not only consistent but of relatively large magnitude. However, the initial effects, although highly significant in a statistical sense, were not of a large absolute magnitude «1)2 ranged from 2 to 8 percent). And finally, the NSA - NCA difference index was a less powerful covariate than using NSA alone.

DISCUSSION We intended this experiment to be a critical test of the mediational role of cognitive responses. Thus, the design

257


offered multiple opportunities for disconfirmation of the theoretical expectation that cognitive responses mediate message effects on cognitive structure elements. However, NCA and/or NSA were shown to be apparent mediators of every significant ad content effect on cognitive structure elements, including beliefs, attitudes, and purchase intention. It was especially important that cognitive responses were shown to (partially) mediate all message effects on product attribute beliefs, as no other study has demonstrated this effect. However, despite the consistent evidence that NCA or NSA mediated every message effect on elements of cognitive structure, it must be noted that neither type of cognitive response mediated all of the reliable, treatmentinduced variance in most cognitive structure variables. Also, combining NSA and NCA as a difference index of pro minus con thoughts seldom mediated more variance than using either NSA or NCA as a single mediator.

Causal Flow of the Cognitive Response/ Cognitive Structure Model In general, then, the results obtained are consistent with the "loose" sense of cognitive response mediation described earlier. That is, some measure of cognitive response apparently mediated at least part of every message content effect on each cognitive structure element. However, we did not attempt to test the strong version of the cognitive response mediation hypothesis. That point of view, represented by a literal, linear interpretation of Model 4, suggests that cognitive responses mediate only message content effects on beliefs, beliefs in tum mediate all subsequent effects on attitudes, and attitudes then mediate effects on behavioral intentions. Instead, the analyses presented here suggest that cognitive responses partially mediate message effects on all three elements of cognitive structure-i.e., beliefs, attitudes, and intentions. Because we have not addressed all of the relationships in the joint model, this study should be considered only an initial step in testing the causal integrity of the cognitive response/cognitive structure model. Future research designed to sort out these complex causal relationships will encounter formidable difficulties, beginning with measurement problems. For example, cognitive structure variables, especially Ao ' A act ' and BI are usually measured on similar scales placed close together in a questionnaire. Therefore, their intercorrelations are probably contaminated to some extent by common method variance. This artifact makes it difficult to infer the extent to which the cognitive structure elements are theoretically related. Moreover, the different variables are probably measured with varying degrees of precision by scales of uncertain and unequal reliability and validity. The reliability and validity problems are especially relevant for the cognitive response measures. Using measures of modest reliability and validity makes determining the causal relationships among constructs very difficult. Another difficulty concerns the complex data analyses necessary to establish a causal flow between the several theoretically related variables. A

simultaneous equation, causal modeling perspective may be required to sort out these sources of variation (cf. Swasy 1980). Yet another problem for future research involves the rather vague theoretical basis for the typical categorization scheme that most researchers have used in studying cognitive responses. This issue is discussed in some detail later. In summary, we found overall support for cognitive responses as general mediators of ad content effects on cognitive structure elements. However, there are certain aspects of the obtained results and the joint cognitive response/cognitive structure model itself that warrant further consideration. Specifically, we are interested in possible reasons for (a) the "incomplete" mediation effects and (b) the differential mediation effects of NCA and NSA.

Strength of Cognitive Response Mediation Although our analyses show that both NSA and NCA had mediating effects on product attribute beliefs and other cognitive structure elements, neither type of cognitive response completely mediated the effects of the advertised product information. However, there was an interesting regularity in the degree to which NCA and NSA apparently mediated the effect of the information treatments. In general, both NCA and NSA seemed to mediate about 45 percent (± 10 percent) of the variance in cognitive structure elements caused by the treatment (see Tables 2 and 3). For instance, NCA removed 35 percent of the variance in BI that was due to the price level information, while NSA presumably mediated 47 percent of the variance in '2:,2:,b ijeij produced by the amount-of-product-information manipulation (79 percent for A act ' 46 percent for Ao)' This consistency in the magnitude of the mediating effect of both types of cognitive responses (CA and SA) is an intriguing finding that warrants further research to establish its stability and generalizability. Why didn't the cognitive responses mediate substantially more than 45 percent or so of the treatment-produced variance? Four jssues underlie possible explanations-the magnitude of the treatment effects themselves, measurement problems, the intervening ad evaluation task, and an alternative causal model. Magnitude of Treatment Effects. Perhaps the "limited" magnitude of the ad content treatment effects can account for the modest sizes of the observed cognitive response mediation effects. It may be that we found cognitive responses to mediate only about 45 percent of the variation in cognitive structure elements because the amount of treatment-induced variation that was available to be mediated was rather small (ul varied from 0.02 to 0.20). If the ad content manipulations had created larger effects on cognitive structure variables, say 002 of 0.40 or 0.50 (and if the cognitive response measures were highly reliable and valid indicators of "communication processes"), we might have obtained larger mediation effects for the cognitive responses. In other words, to see large mediation effects, you may have to create large effects to be mediated.

258

Measurement Problems. Because of reliability and validity problems in measuring cognitive responses (and elements of cognitive structure), it is difficult to demonstrate that cognitive response indices completely mediate any message effect. For instance, it is unlikely that any set of written or verbal protocols can accurately represent the total thought production an individual experiences during exposure to a communication message. In fact, most measures of cognitive responses probably underestimate the actual number of thoughts, at least some of which may be difficult to verbalize, although certain procedures such as unlimited response time may overestimate the true number of thoughts (see Wright 1980). Moreover, there is a high likelihood that at least some subjects will distort some of their reported thoughts and forget or censor other thoughts. Thus, the extent to which cognitive responses accurately indicate the actual thoughts that occurred during message exposure is uncertain. It is certain, though, that cognitive responses are imperfect measures. Thus, even if Model 4 is "true," we may have difficulty producing data that will totally substantiate it. Another measurement problem involves the type of empirical indicators of cognitive response activity that are commonly used. To date, most researchers have coded cognitive responses at a broad, fairly abstract level, usually in terms of the evaluative direction of the thoughts vis-a-vis that of the message. Thus, thoughts favorable to the message topic are coded as support arguments, while unfavorable thoughts are considered to be counterarguments. Typically, simple indices are constructed based only on the sheer number of the various thought types. In nearly all studies (including the present one), the topical content of the thought, in the sense of its specific referent and its semantic meaning, has been ignored. Perhaps it can be argued that this level of analysis is appropriate if the researcher is interested only in predicting overall evaluation or attitude. However, researchers concerned with the effects of more subtle aspects of message information on specific beliefs, or particular attitudes (e. g., A ad , or A source' or Abrand) may have to develop deeper, more semantic levels of analysis. In future research, cognitive response protocols could be coded in terms of their semantic content, and the frequency of particular thoughts could be related directly to changes in the corresponding specific beliefs or attitudes. This discussion of belief formation points to a limitation ofthis study (and, in fact, a limitation of nearly all previous research). As in most studies, subjects in the present research responded to a structured questionnaire that required them to indicate the strength of their beliefs about seven product attributes that we assumed were "salient" for most subjects. Although we hope that this assumption was not severely violated, it almost certainly is not completely valid. In fact, there is a high probability in this study-and in virtually every other cognitive structure study-that the measured belief strengths were a partial function of being "forced" to respond to the questionnaire, at least for some subjects. To the extent that this is so, the measured beliefs are not due to the mediating effect of measured cognitive responses or to the direct effects of the information content


of the message, but rather to the reactive effects of the measurements. Lutz and Swasy (1977) and Mitchell and Olson (1981) have suggested a way out of this dilemma that involves freely eliciting the idiosyncratic beliefs of each subject and then measuring the strength and evaluative aspects of those unique beliefs. However, a study using such a procedure has not yet been reported. Intervening Task. It is possible that the mediation effects of cognitive responses were attenuated by the advertising evaluation task that intervened between the cognitive response and the cognitive structure measures. Recall that immediately after writing their cognitive responses, subjects responded to six questions/items regarding their evaluations of the advertisement and two questions asking them to write down key aspects of the advertisement. We included these questions to separate the measures of cognitive response and cognitive structure and to support the experimental guise that we were primarily interested in people's evaluation of the promotional material for this new product-i.e., the advertisement. In hindsight, including this task may have been problematic. In responding to these ad evaluation questions, some subjects may have had additional thoughts about the product that could have affected the cognitive structure elements. But these thoughts would not be included in the measured cognitive responses. Thus, to the extent this occurred, the relationships between cognitive responses and cognitive structure elements may have been attenuated. There is an interesting sense, however, in which intervening tasks have some mundane realism. In the real world of advertising, many events can occur between exposure to an ad and a subsequent evaluation of the product, perhaps during a decision process. Some of these events may cause consumers to think about the advertised brand, and these thoughts could affect the relationship between the advertisement and cognitive structure elements. Manipulations of such intervening events could be included in future research. Alternative Models. It is also worth considering, on a theoretical basis, whether cognitive responses are the sole mediator of message effects on cognitive structure variables. Perhaps the effects of certain aspects of advertising information content on cognitive structure elements are not mediated by the language-based, semantic thoughts that seem to be tapped by current cognitive response procedures. For instance, the effect of visual information on cognitive structure elements may be mediated by processes other than those reflected by traditional measures of cognitive responses (cf. Rossiter and Percy 1978). Other, as yet unspecified mediating processes may be operating during communication exposure. For example, perhaps certain information in an advertisement may somehow "directly" affect the formation of new brand beliefs, or change existing beliefs without the occurrence of thoughts regarding that belief content (cf. Mitchell and Olson 1981). Such theoretical alternatives to the cognitive response/cognitive structure model should be developed and explored in future research.


Different Mediation Roles for SA and CA? Interestingly, we found that support arguing (SA) and counterarguing (CA) seemed to differentially mediate the effects of the advertised information on the various cognitive structure elements. For instance, the price level manipulation had significant main effects both on NCA and NSA and on three cognitive structure variables: the two price-related beliefs-perceived cost of the pen and value for the money-and subjects' behavioral intention to buy the pen. For all three cognitive elements, NCA was a more powerful mediator of the price information effects than was NSA, although the latter cognitive response did have a small mediating effect (see Table 2). These results are consistent with the common-sense notion that pro and con thoughts about price information should most directly affect cost and value beliefs and intentions to purchase. In contrast, the manipulation of amount of product information affected seven elements of cognitive structurefour attribute beliefs, the overall evaluation index for belief structure, and both attitude measures-but only NSA of the various cognitive response types. NSA was shown to be an apparent mediator of all these information treatment effects. In hindsight, these effects of support arguing also seem reasonable. Subjects should find it difficult to support argue for a brand about which they know only the brand name and the price. However, when subjects were given additional nonprice information about the product that extolled four positive attributes of the pen, subjects could think about this advertised information in a positive manner, thus yielding SA. Perhaps because all the "extra" information was positive and somewhat technical (and thus difficult to counterargue), the additional information treatment had no effects on NCA. To summarize, both NCA and NSA mediated the effects of the price treatment (on two beliefs and BI), while only NSA mediated the cognitive structure effects of the amountof-product-information manipulation (on four beliefs, LL bijeij' A act ' ~nd Ao)' Other .cons~mer r~searche~s ha~e also obtained eVIdence suggest10g dIfferential relatIOnshIps between types of cognitive response and various cognitive elements (Edell and Mitchell 1978; Wright 1973, 1974a, 1980). However, much of the cognitive response literature, especially that in psychology, cannot be used to address this issue because the usual dependent variable was a single index of Ao' Future research should include measures of multiple cognitive structure elements in order to examine the issue of differential mediation effects of cognitive responses in detail. We should also work to develop more finely grained schemes for categorizing cognitive responses that might allow differential mediation effects to be evidenced more clearly.

What Causes Cognitive Responses? To clarify the role of cognitive responses as mediators of information effects on cognitive structure, we need to develop a clearer theoretical understanding of how cognitive responses are produced. We might then be able to

259

deduce from this conceptual model the likely effects of certain information treatments on these cognitive processes and on measures of cognitive responses and cognitive structure variables. At present, the cognitive response model seems to be loosely based on the information processing perspective of people as active processors of informatio~. That is, what people do when thinking about a message IS important. However, the model does not specify the cognitive processes that are presumed to occur during exposure to a message. Thus it is not clear what aspects of information processing are being tapped by the thought protocols. This section presents some preliminary ideas on developing a cognitive processing perspective to cognitive response. Several authors have pointed out that a person's thoughts are based partially upon the existing knowledge that person has acquired and stored in memory (cf. Brock 1967; Greenwald 1968; Olson 1978a, 1980; Tybout, Stemthal, and Calder 1978; Wright 1974b). In certain situations, however, people may not have much knowled~e that is directly re~ evant to the task. This was the case 10 the present expenment, where subjects had no preexposure cognitive structure for the advertised brand. Thus, the relevant knowledge base is derived primarily from the product information in the advertisement and subjects' general knowledge regarding the topic. Despite fairly widespread acknowledgment of the influence of existing knowledge structures, there are few direct studies of those effects (see Toy 1982 for an exception). With this as background, a sequence of cognitive processes can be postulated to account for cognitive responses. The specific information or knowledge content involved in these processes, and the nature of the processes themselves, are presumed to determine the type, number, and content of the thoughts that are reflected by the cognitive responses. The knowledge content in question would be a joint function of the information (both verbal and visual) contained in the message and the receiver's previously acquired cognitive structures. It is assumed that exposure and attention to a communication activates, or makes available for processing, relevant substructure(s) of knowledge stored in the receiver's memory (Olson 1978a). These knowledge structures may be very specific and quite similar in their content dimensions to the information contained in the message, or they may be only generally relevant, or even largely irrelevant. The degree of appropriateness of the activated knowledge structure would be due in part to the type and extent of past learning experiences the receiver has had with the topic, as well as to the care with which the advertiser created a message with familiar content. The activated structures of knowledge will also vary in their evaluative discrepancy from the position advocated in the message. Once activiated, these knowledge structures are then used to interpret and comprehend the "incoming" information from the message (cf. Olson 1978a, 1980). Presumably, thoughts are generated during these encoding processes, and some of these thoughts may be reflected by the cognitive response measures. Olson (1980) has suggested, in fact, that cognitive responses could be coded and inter-

260


preted as indicators of the infonnation encoding process (Craik and Lockhart 1972), or at least of those parts of encoding operations that are available to conscious introspection (Ericsson and Simon 1980).

FUTURE RESEARCH A major task for future research involves detennining the constructs and/or processes that are measured by cognitive responses. Lutz and Swasy (1977) pointed out that most operational measures of cognitive responses were proposed on an intuitive, ad hoc basis. For example, researchers interested in persuasion (attitude change) tended to categorize cognitive responses simply in tenns of their pro and con evaluative characteristics. Beyond general references to an active, infonnation processing perspective, relatively few researchers have tried to provide cognitive response with a more precisely stated theoretical foundation (see Calder 1978; Lutz and Swasy 1977; Tybout et al. 1978). Thus we do not have a very clear idea of what cognitive responses indicate. Do they reflect the beliefs that form after processing a communication, as Lutz and Swasy (1977) suggest? Should "purely affective thoughts" be considered indicators of attitude, as Wright (1980) suggests? Do cognitive responses reflect the information that is activated from long-tenn memory, as Tybout et al. (1978) suggest? Obviously, we need a clear, compelling theoretical perspective that tells us how to operationalize our thought protocols and how to interpret those measures. In light of the previous discussion of how cognitive responses are created, we suggest that it is useful to think of cognitive responses as indicators of the encoding processes that take place as the receiver comprehends a communication, whatever the level of comprehension (Olson 1978b). Much more work is required, of course, to flesh out this skeletal theoretical framework. One could develop this perspective further by making use of theories of encoding such as levels-of-processing (Cermak and Craik 1979; Craik and Lockhart 1972) or theories of memory traces (Tulving and Watkins 1975). Other theoretical ideas could be integrated into an encoding process perspective on cognitive response research, including the effects of processing goals (cf. Mitchell, Gardner, and Russo 1982) and the effects of existing knowledge structures (Tybout et al. 1978; Olson 1980). As the theoretical framework is developed, we can also construct operational procedures for eliciting and coding cognitive responses in ways that are consistent with the theory. Of the several issues that require further theoretical elaboration and empirical attention in future research, the effects of preexposure cognitive structures on cognitive responding seem especially important. We should begin to conceptualize and measure subjects' preexposure belief or knowledge structures and establish their effects on cognitive responses. Interestingly, the bulk of cognitive response research thus far has used posttest-only designs. Thus, belief or attitude change-within subjects, as a function of cognitive response-has seldom been measured. To do so, one could first detennine which preexposure beliefs are salient

for a subject, the strengths and evaluations (hie;) of these beliefs, and preexposure attitudes and intentions. Then one could detennine the role of these cognitive structure elements in mediating message effects on cognitive responses. Moreover, after monitoring cognitive responses to the message, one could remeasure these cognitive structure elements and determine the changes, if any, caused by the cognitive response process. Note that this perspective suggests a recursive cognitive response/cognitive structure model in which the causal effects flow in both directions. Thus, one may consider cognitive responses to cause cognitive structure, or vice versa, depending upon which part of the overall process is of interest. If we are concerned with how cognitive responses are caused, then preexposure cognitive structure is a key mediating influence. If we are interested in how messages affect beliefs or attitudes, then cognitive responses are a major mediating factor. In other cases, we might be concerned with the entire set of recursive relationships (see Toy 1982). In future research concerned with establishing the causal relationships among the many variables in the joint cognitive response/cognitive structure model, this complexity should be taken into account. A variety of other issues suggested by the conceptual point of view presented earlier also warrant attention in future theorizing and research, but space constraints allow us to mention only some of them. For instance, which infonnation cues in an advertisement activate which knowledge structures in semantic memory? What happens when an inappropriate knowledge structure is activated? What kinds of encoding operations occur during initial comprehension and what thought processes occur during yielding to or rejecting the source beliefs contained in an ad? Are the comprehension and yielding processes identifiable/separable empirically? Can cognitive response protocols be used to measure these processes? How do such factors as ego-involvement with the topic affect these processes? When are attitudes formed-during initial processing or later, perhaps during the decision-making process? Where in the sequence of processing stages does distraction operate-at the activation-of-knowledge stage, the comprehension/understanding stage, the yielding/rejection stage, or at all three? Exactly how do different media influence these cognitive processes and concurrent cognitive response production?

CONCLUSIONS This research indicates that a combined cognitive response/cognitive structure approach to communications research is both methodologically and conceptually viable. Our results indicate that cognitive responses play a role in partially mediating the effects of infonnation in an advertisement on beliefs, attitudes, and intentions. More work remains to be done, of course. Much of the empirical research will be concerned with more precisely establishing the causal relationships between the variables in the joint model, no doubt, but a large part of our future work should


be theoretical. We need to more clearly conceptualize the theoretical basis for cognitive responses. Concepts and ideas from cognitive psychology should be useful in providing a clearer and more heuristic theoretical framework for describing how cognitive responses and cognitive structure are affected by communication information and how they influence each other (cf. Olson 1978a, 1980). Then future theoretical and empirical research can work toward testing those ideas and developing them further.

[Received July 1979. Revised June 1982.]

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