The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the types of appeals made to employees by employers and labor organizations for the purpose of influencing the employees' decision with respect to accepting or rejecting collective bargaining, and classifying, as near as possible, the types of appeals.

The purpose of this study is to explore how to make persuasive messages effective to sufficiently motivate individuals to form good security practice through two aspects - affect valence-based message and message framing effect. The two emotional appeals examined in this study include traditional fear appeals and humor appeals. Fear appeals, arousing people's fear to persuade them to take precautionary actions, are predominant in the literature of information security. By contrast, humorous messages have been found to induce positive affect, reduce negativity, and enhance message acceptance. In addition, messages can be illustrated in a broader context or can be presented with particular examples tailored to individuals' decision-making. The effects of these two ways - thematic and episodic frames - are also investigated in the fear and humor appeals. A multi-group experimental design is adopted to examine the hypotheses. 577 valid responses were collected from college students at Mississippi State University via a professional platform. Followed by a number of rigorous analysis, the results indicate that a humor appeal is more effective when framed in a thematic frame. Furthermore, issue relevance and gender difference are salient factors that can influence the interaction between affect valence and message frame. Additionally, both abstract and concrete fear appeals demonstrated a stronger impact than concrete humor appeals on individuals' intent to follow the positive security practice. However, there is no evidence that concrete fear appeals are more superior to abstract ones. It's not found that humor appeals are more effective than traditional fear appeals when promoting cybersecurity threats.

Thesis--Marburg. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. x-xx).

The dissertation examines the use of background appeals in campaign messages. I argue that background appeals allow campaigns to meet two seemingly conflicting incentives in the same message—the incentive to reduce voters’ uncertainty about their candidate, and the incentive to remain ambiguous in their issue positions. Background appeals allow voters to know more about a candidate and develop more certainty about what he will do in office. At the same times, campaigns can achieve this goal while avoiding specific policy commitments, which, on controversial issues, might repel a significant part of the electorate. I test my argument by examining how campaigns plan on using candidates’ backgrounds by interviewing a sample of political consultants. The consultants I interviewed make the candidate’s background a top priority in developing a message plan for their clients. They want to show voters “who their candidate is” as a means of developing likeability and credibility with voters. As expected, campaigns use background appeals frequently, in nearly 80% of advertisements aired by US Senate campaigns in 2000 and 2002. But in these appeals, campaigns avoid specifically connecting their candidate to particular policies. Also, the appeal of ambiguity is so great that campaigns only use more specific background appeals when discussing the opponent’s background. Background appeals can have a positive effect on perceptions of a candidate. Using an experimental design, I vary the background of a mock candidate for Congress while holding constant his issue position. Respondents regard the candidate more favorably when they learn about his occupation than when they receive no such information. / text

Across two studies I examined how making an intergroup ideology salient affected White Canadians’ openness to persuasive appeals and their support for increased government funding to provide clean running water to First Nations communities. In Study 1, 247 White Canadian participants were exposed to either multicultural or colour-blind ideology or no ideology and read six strong arguments in favor of increased government funding. Participants then rated their support for increased funding. Results revealed that White Canadians exposed to multiculturalism allocated less government funding to the issue than did those in the no-ideology condition. In Study 2, 74 White Canadian participants completed all the same measures except they did not read the strong arguments prior to rating their support. Results revealed that White Canadians exposed to multicultural or colour-blind ideology showed greater support for government funding than did those in the no-ideology condition. Implications are discussed. / October 2015

Thesis (M.U.P.)--Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science. Dept. of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, 1957. / Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.U.P.)--Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science. Dept. of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, 1957.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hospitality Management / Kristin Malek / Kevin R. Roberts / This experimental study explores how different marketing tactics, such as advertising types, message appeals, and social norms, influence attitude toward the advertisement, attitude toward the convention, and pro-environmental intention. This research has three objectives: to determine how message types in green advertising affect attitudes and intentions, to examine how message appeals in green advertising affect attitudes and intentions, and to investigate the role of social norms in green advertising in the formation of those attitudes and intentions. To examine the effects of message type, message appeals, and social norms on convention attendees’ behavioral intentions toward such a convention, a 2 (message type) x 2 (message appeals) x 2 (social norms) experimental design was adopted. This was chosen given its recognized ability to clarify associative relationships by enhancing internal validity and the robustness of findings. Several hypotheses were tested with a sample of convention attendees from the United States using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Specific findings from this study include that fact that green marketing messages combining verbal claims and visual claims were significantly more effective than messages using verbal claims only. Additionally, messages with emotional appeals were significantly more effective than ones with rational appeals and messages with injunctive norm claims were significantly more effective than ones with descriptive norm claims. As the first study of its kind to empirically investigate the use of green advertising in the context of conventions, this research involved several novel applications of various theories and a conceptual model. This study utilizes research from several disciplines whose examples can inform green marketing strategies in the convention industry. At the end, the researcher discusses the possible implications of its own findings for the convention industry in addition to its segment in the broader hospitality industry in the United States.

As the use of nostalgia (an individual’s yearning for positive associations with the past) as an evoked emotional appeal in advertising increases in popularity in South Africa, questions begin to arise as to whom this nostalgic appeal is most relevant. For marketers and advertisers to create the most effective advertising, they need to be able to communicate with their target markets using the appeals that are most relevant to them. This study addresses this in the context of South African print advertisements by analysing whether consumers are indeed receptive to the nostalgic appeals used in the ads, and then seeking to associate their receptiveness to their demographic characteristics (age group, gender and population group). This research was conducted via an online survey and then parametrically tested. The results indicated that insufficient evidence exited to predict the relevance of nostalgia in advertising by gender or population group. However, evidence was found that suggests that the relevance of nostalgia does vary depending on the consumers’ age.Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Under de senaste åren har det skett en ekonomisk tillväxt vilket bidragit till att människan konsumerar mer än någonsin. Den ökade konsumtionen har en negativ påverkan på miljön där exempelvis livsmedelsbranschen står för ungefärliga 44-57 procent av de totala växthusutsläppen. Då överkonsumtionen har en negativ påverkan på världen har det blivit allt viktigare att konsumenter blir medvetna om deras konsumtion och dess påverkan på miljön. Forskare menar att konsumenter bör ta till sig ett mer miljöanpassat konsumentbeteende där ett alternativ är att börja konsumera ekologiskt. Tidigare forskare har identifierat att det finns ett attitydgap hos konsumenter gällande ekologisk konsumtion. Attitydgapet innebär att konsumenter uppger sig ha en positiv attityd gentemot att konsumera ekologiska produkter men när de väl ska konsumera väljer de i flesta fall att konsumera konventionella produkter. Varför detta attitydgap existerar har blivit diskuterat av ett flertal forskare. Ett flertal faktorer har blivit identifierade och en gemensam faktor som ett flertal forskare identifierat är informationsbrist (kunskapsbrist). Studier visar att konsumenter möjligtvis inte besitter den kunskap som är nödvändig för att få dem att välja att konsumera ekologiska produkter. En anledning till varför dem möjligtvis inte besitter denna kunskap är då informationen angående innebörden av att konsumera ekologiskt är bristfällig samt att den information som företag använder inte är effektiv. Vår studie har studerat vilken kunskap konsumenter faktiskt besitter gällande KRAVmärkta livsmedelsprodukter, vilket är Sveriges största ekologiskt certifierade märke. Vidare har vår studie studerat om konsumenterna uppfattar att det finns en informationsbrist gällande innebörden av att konsumera KRAV samt vilken sorts information som är mest effektiv för livsmedelsföretagen att använda i deras marknadskommunikation. Studiens resultat visar att respondenterna besitter en relativt låg kunskap gällande KRAV och dess innebörd. Majoriteten av respondenterna uppger korrekta svar i enkätfrågorna men samtidigt uppvisar dem att de flesta känner en stor osäkerhet på om deras angivna svar varit korrekt eller inte. Detta resulterar i att vi författare tolkar att dessa respondenter har en måttlig kunskapsbrist då de inte är säkra på att deras svar varit korrekta. Vidare visar resultatet av vår studie att respondenterna uppfattar att företag kommunicerar innebörden av att konsumera KRAV-märkta livsmedelsprodukter i låg grad. Ytterligare visar studien att den mest effektiva metoden företag inom livsmedelsbranschen bör använda i dess kommunikation av KRAV-märkta livsmedelsprodukter är negativ information. Negativ information innebär att företag använder information i dess marknadskommunikation som triggar konsumenternas negativa känslor. Resultatet av studien visar även att den negativa informationen endast är effektiv att använda om den är ”moderat”, det vill säga måttlig. Om information är extrem visar resultatet att den inte är effektiv att använda för att kommunicera KRAVmärkta livsmedelsprodukter.