The effects of various antecedents to cognitive elaboration on the structural properties and subjective beliefs related to attitude strength were examined in 2 experiments. Participants read vaccine-related information and received arguments for and against the implementation of a vaccine program for a fictitious virus. Their ability and motivation to attend to the central merits of the arguments were manipulated using a 2 (high vs. low ability) x 2 (high vs. low motivation) between-participants design, and the effects on 21 attitude- and attitude-strength related outcome variables were observed. Ability was determined by time pressure (Study 1) and distraction (Study 2), and motivation was determined by personal responsibility (Study 1) and involvement (Study 2). A meta-analysis of the experiments revealed that whereas none of the structural properties related to attitude strength were affected, all of the subjective beliefs were affected, and ability and motivation had differential effects. Ability primarily affected beliefs that reflect the validity and consistency of the knowledge base as well as the intensity of the attitude; motivation affected beliefs that reflect the intensity of the attitude and the functional relevance of the attitude object. As well, ability and motivation interacted on a number of variables, with a consistent pattern emerging: High (vs. low) motivation was associated with increased perceived knowledge, clarity, and accessibility, and decreased ambivalence under low ability; the opposite pattern occurred under high ability. Overall, this research represents the first systematic and the most comprehensive attempt to determine which strength dimensions are affected by variations in elaboration. It also provides evidence that the subjective beliefs might operate independent of the structural properties, that various antecedents to elaboration might not be directly interchangeable, and that ability and motivation might have different strength-related outcomes. Finally, this research demonstrated that when used in tandem, the effects of ability and motivation do not necessarily operate in an additive fashion, but can interact in some previously unforeseen ways. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2010-08-23 10:51:04.52

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The proposed research explores a contextual perspective in multiple object situations. Specifically, I focus on the context effect created by an object associated with strong attitude on the subsequent evaluative judgment of a target object. Through five studies, I find that the context effect of a strong attitude object is greater for objects with neutral-strength attitudes than for the objects with very strong or very weak attitudes, which result in a curved relationship between the magnitude of the context effect and the strength associated with attitudes towards targets. In addition, I find that the direction of the context effect of a strong attitude object is determined by the valence of the attitudes towards the target objects: targets with positive attitudes become less positive, and those with negative attitudes become less negative. That is, the results of the context effects represent as a form of decreased extremity of the attitudes towards targets. More importantly, it is found that these differing magnitudes and directions of the context effect of an object with strong attitude finally result in evaluative space distortion. I trace the underlying process mechanism of theses effects and find that: 1) the divergent magnitudes of the context effects are the result of the differing level of comparison difficulty between a contextual object and target objects; and 2) the divergent directions of the context effects are the product of perceived uncertainty about the attitude towards target objects.

The previous research have found that consumers' choices of vacations may be significantly influenced by mental imagery processing, which is considered to be high elaboration cognitive processing. Mental imagery is defined as an experience that significantly resembles the experience of perceiving some object, event, or scene, but which occurs in the absence of the appropriate stimuli for the relevant object, event, or scene. This study first aims to identify imagery-eliciting Web site features and second, to test their influence on persuasion-related outcomes such as attitude strength, confidence, and attitude resistance. Finally, this study investigates the role of individual processing style (e.g., visualizer or verbalizer) as a moderator variable. A total of 252 subjects participated in a Web-based experiment to examine the influence of selected Web site features on individual imagery processing and its effect on consumers’ attitudes and expectations. It involved a 2 (narrative vs. expository text) × 2 (pictures vs. no picture) × 2 (sounds vs. no sound) full factorial between-subjects design. The data was analyzed primarily using a structural equation modeling methodology. Structural model results revealed that the mental imagery construct strongly influenced the communication effects, which were represented by attitude strength and attitude confidence. In addition, the results of the study found that the communication effects had a significant impact on attitude resistance. This implies that the stronger attitude creates stronger resistance to a negative impact. In the context of the influence of Web site features (e.g., narrative text, pictures, and sound) inducing mental imagery processing, only pictures have a significant effect on mental imagery processing, which support positive effects of concrete pictures on mental imagery processing. In conclusion, the findings of this study show that mental imagery processing is important. Thus, we need to continue to investigate what forms of Web site designs and features best support imagery processing. More specifically, tourism marketers need to understand how certain stimuli influence mental imagery processing, and then they need to enhance Web site designs to capture potential customers.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In the last two decades, ambivalence has emerged as one of the primary concerns of attitude researchers. The acknowledgement that individuals can simultaneously evaluate an attitude object as both positive and negative has challenged a number of the status quos of the attitude literature. This thesis utilises an unfolding approach to investigate the implications of ambivalence for the conceptualisation of attitudes and their measurement. Firstly, the assumption that ambivalence is at odds with the bipolar understanding of attitudes was investigated. The results suggested that ambivalence is consistent with bipolarity, whereby ambivalent attitudes are located at the centre of the bipolar dimension. Secondly, attitude scales for the abortion, euthanasia and Aboriginal Australians issues were constructed to reflect this bipolar understanding. The fit of these statements to Coombs’ (1964) unidimensional unfolding theory provided evidence that ambivalence is also consistent with the quantitative conceptualisation of attitudes. Together these results provided further validation of the unfolding approach to attitude measurement. These models alleviate many of the problems faced by the ubiquitous method of summated ratings, including the assessment of ambivalent evaluations. Finally, these scales were used to investigate the latent structure of attitudes and its relationship with meta-psychological judgements of ambivalence. The conclusions drawn from these analyses were limited by a number of issues, highlighting the importance of rigorously considering measurement issues for all attitude parameters. Nonetheless, they presented preliminary validation of these scales’ ability to measure ambivalent evaluations and suggested a systematic relationship between proximity to the centre of the evaluative dimension and metapsychological ambivalence. Overall, it is concluded that a number of assumptions regarding the implications of ambivalence are misplaced and the proposed solutions are even more troublesome. Suggestions for future research are made, particularly with respect to differentiating between ambivalent, indifferent and uncertain evaluative states. Furthermore, attitude researchers are encouraged to discard their operationalist biases in order to engage with the measurement issues illuminated throughout this thesis. This is necessary to account for the complexity of the attitude construct, which ambivalence is testament to.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In the last two decades, ambivalence has emerged as one of the primary concerns of attitude researchers. The acknowledgement that individuals can simultaneously evaluate an attitude object as both positive and negative has challenged a number of the status quos of the attitude literature. This thesis utilises an unfolding approach to investigate the implications of ambivalence for the conceptualisation of attitudes and their measurement. Firstly, the assumption that ambivalence is at odds with the bipolar understanding of attitudes was investigated. The results suggested that ambivalence is consistent with bipolarity, whereby ambivalent attitudes are located at the centre of the bipolar dimension. Secondly, attitude scales for the abortion, euthanasia and Aboriginal Australians issues were constructed to reflect this bipolar understanding. The fit of these statements to Coombs’ (1964) unidimensional unfolding theory provided evidence that ambivalence is also consistent with the quantitative conceptualisation of attitudes. Together these results provided further validation of the unfolding approach to attitude measurement. These models alleviate many of the problems faced by the ubiquitous method of summated ratings, including the assessment of ambivalent evaluations. Finally, these scales were used to investigate the latent structure of attitudes and its relationship with meta-psychological judgements of ambivalence. The conclusions drawn from these analyses were limited by a number of issues, highlighting the importance of rigorously considering measurement issues for all attitude parameters. Nonetheless, they presented preliminary validation of these scales’ ability to measure ambivalent evaluations and suggested a systematic relationship between proximity to the centre of the evaluative dimension and metapsychological ambivalence. Overall, it is concluded that a number of assumptions regarding the implications of ambivalence are misplaced and the proposed solutions are even more troublesome. Suggestions for future research are made, particularly with respect to differentiating between ambivalent, indifferent and uncertain evaluative states. Furthermore, attitude researchers are encouraged to discard their operationalist biases in order to engage with the measurement issues illuminated throughout this thesis. This is necessary to account for the complexity of the attitude construct, which ambivalence is testament to.

No description available.