In spite of modern technological advancements that can convert wastewater into potable water, the acceptability of recycled water is generally low. This study examined strategies for increasing the public acceptability of recycled water. Based on the elaboration likelihood model, I hypothesized that issue relevance, argument quality, and delivery type would interact to produce differing levels of support for potable recycled water. Undergraduate students took part in a 2 (issue relevance: low, high) x 2 (argument quality: weak, strong) x 2 (delivery: textual, pictorial) online study relating to their opinion and support for the potential implementation of a potable recycled water system on campus. Issue relevance was manipulated by varying the completion date of implementing the system (low: five years; high: one year). Argument quality was manipulated by varying the complexity of the message presented (weak: point-form; strong: paragraph form). Delivery was manipulated by presenting water recycling processes in a textual or pictorial format. The hypotheses were not supported, although the means were in the predicted direction. Limitations and future directions are discussed. / Graduate

<p>Forskning visar att budskap uppfattas olika beroende på perifera egenskaper. Syftet var att undersöka om man uppfattar personer från olika yrkesgrupper olika kopplade till samma budskap. En enkät inleddes med ett citat från en tidningsartikel. Deltagarna (<em>N </em>= 84) bedömde personen bakom uttalandet i fråga om grad av främlingsfientlighet respektive omsorg; i hälften angavs att en åklagare uttalat sig, i andra hälften en familjepedagog. Resultatet visade att det fanns en tendens till huvudeffekt att åklagaren skattades som fientligare än familjepedagogen samt en tendens att de med annan etnicitet skattade budskapet mer fientligt än etniskt svenska. Studien stödjer delvis antagandet att yrkesgrupp har betydelse för hur budskap uppfattas.</p>

Forskning visar att budskap uppfattas olika beroende på perifera egenskaper. Syftet var att undersöka om man uppfattar personer från olika yrkesgrupper olika kopplade till samma budskap. En enkät inleddes med ett citat från en tidningsartikel. Deltagarna (N = 84) bedömde personen bakom uttalandet i fråga om grad av främlingsfientlighet respektive omsorg; i hälften angavs att en åklagare uttalat sig, i andra hälften en familjepedagog. Resultatet visade att det fanns en tendens till huvudeffekt att åklagaren skattades som fientligare än familjepedagogen samt en tendens att de med annan etnicitet skattade budskapet mer fientligt än etniskt svenska. Studien stödjer delvis antagandet att yrkesgrupp har betydelse för hur budskap uppfattas.

Ikoniska auktoriteter är personer som tillskrivs sådan betydelse att de kommit att symbolisera delar eller aspekter av samhällslivet eller epoker i historien och som kan sägas ha haft ett betydande inflytande på samhället och kulturen. I studien undersöktesom ikoniska auktoriter påverkar oss mer eller annorlunda än andra källor. I ett experiment fick högskolestudenter uppdelade i fyra grupper läsa en text under hög elaboration om en psykologisk teori där variablerna ikonisk auktoritet och personligrelevans manipulerades. Deltagarna ombads sedan skatta vilken trovärdighet de ansåg att teorin hade. Studien ställde upp två hypoteser: att hög ikonisk aukto-ritet skulle öka den skattade trovärdigheten och personlig relevans minska den. Resultatet gav inte stöd åt någon av hypoteserna men en interaktionseffekt visade att texten vid låg personlig relevans uppfattades som mer trovärdig av de deltagare som exponerades för låg ikonisk auktoritet än de deltagare som exponerades för hög ikonisk auktoritet. Det föreslås att interaktionen beror på en backlash-effekt.

The rapid increase of available products and information on the Internet has created new problems for consumers. In stead of not having adequate alternatives, consumers have to spend a lot of effort in filtering and processing information. Overcoming information overload becomes a key issue for information search. As a result, information filtering and product recommendation become increasingly popular among on-line stores. These e-stores can collect user preference and use the information for product recommendation and personalized services. The purpose of recommendation systems is to increase consumers¡¦ purchase intentions, which may be affected by many factors. The objective of this study is to investigate factors that may affect the purchase intention of consumers. More specifically, the research adopts two theories, the elaboration likelihood model and the social influence theory, to build a research framework. We assume that the recommendation message affect consumer attitudes and intention through information and social influences. A laboratory experiment was conducted that use books and movies as two products to test the theory. The results indicate that purchase intention was affected by the attitude toward the recommended product and informational influence. The attitude toward the recommended product, informational influence, and normative social influence were affected by the type of the products and web comments on the product. Different recommendation approaches also affected consumers¡¦ perception of informational influence. The contribution of the research is two folds. First, we develop a theory that can be used to interpret the effect of different factors in the recommendation process. Second, the results have explored much insight into how product recommendation affects consumer attitude and purchase intention and can also be used in designing recommendation systems.

More .crimes of fraud make more . people who receive the messages lose money and felt great fear, which is a huge damage to Taiwan. There are many kind of fraud, included telemarketing fraud, lottery fraud and Automated Teller Machine fraud, etc. Message receivers are not understand the difference is between truth and fraud, and many message receivers reject all the messages they receive than believing racketeers and lose their money and time. There are many common cases of fraud, and related analysis is included in the study. There are four keypoints why message receivers were victims after asking for experts¡¦ opinions, including extra-environmental factors, forms of fraud, message receivers who do not have enough knowledge about fraud and message receivers¡¦ personal factors. Finally, the study designed a questionnaire to investigate what cognition, experience and attitude subjects had. The population of study is the citizens in Kaohsiung. The research uses the elaboration likelihood model as the research method and the situation stimulated to design the questionnaire. The research result is shown as following: the difference between receptions of subjects in the case of common fraud and the case of non-common fraud is significant, and the personal factors gender, age, education level and monthly homehold income level significant to receptions of the subjects.

Nonprofit organizations are dependent on donations and volunteers to remain operational. Most rely on persuasive communications to inform, educate, and convince recipients of their messaging to respond in order to raise funds and generate volunteers. Though the marketing and psychology literature has examined charitable giving and volunteerism, the effectiveness of persuasive messages to affect philanthropy, gift-giving, and fundraising is a gap in the cause marketing literature (Dann et al. 2007). Because consumers rarely enter a situation without preexisting attitudes or beliefs, it is expected that individuals exposed to an advertisement by a nonprofit organization will look for ways to compare the messages within the ad to their own beliefs and attitudes. Two theories help explain the processing that takes place in relation to attitudes, beliefs, and persuasive communications – elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The research presented here combines these theories to answer questions regarding behavioral intention related to donating and volunteering when individuals are exposed to certain persuasive messages from a nonprofit organization. Results show that one’s involvement with the advertisement combines with one’s attitude toward donating to help determine propensity to donate and the amount of the donation. However, this is dependent upon the message in the ad. When messages indicate that others are supportive of the cause, donations increase when one is more involved with the ad and is generally agreeable to donating. But these messages have the opposite effect when one is not involved with the ad – donations decrease when the message indicates others support the cause. And when messages indicate that even a minimal donation is possible, the attitude driver has no effect on donation behavior. However, when involvement is low, one’s age plays a role in driving individuals toward action, with older people more driven to give when exposed to supportive messages under low involvement conditions than younger groups. For individuals who tend to rely on referents for their own actions, differing messages in advertisements have little effect whether they are involved with the ad or not. That is, in most cases, only their involvement with the ad seems to be the real indicator of behavior. That said, the message that indicates that minimum giving is acceptable seems to affect donations, as individuals more prone to seek referent input rely on this message to help direct behavior, but not volunteerism. But, the cues were more readily adopted by those who were not highly involved. This research contributes to the field of cause marketing in several ways. First, it exposed involvement with the advertisement as the primary driver for behavioral intention in a nonprofit context over one’s preexisting attitudes and beliefs. Second, it identified varying response patterns that individuals have to specific advertising messages based on their level of involvement and strength of those beliefs and attitudes. Third, it augmented the integrated ELM-TPB theoretical model by demonstrating that attitude toward the ad can play a role in consumer decision making. Fourth, it identified age as a factor in behavioral intention related to nonprofit organizations in two specific instances: 1) when attitude and involvement combine for older individuals exposed to normative messages, and 2) when subjective norms and involvement combine for younger individuals exposed to messages that legitimize minimal effort. And fifth, it uncovered implications for managers to develop strategic messages that can increase target audience involvement and positively affect donations and volunteerism.

Ett budskap uppfattas olika beroende på avsändare. Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) beskriver hur människor kan bearbeta ett budskap på olika sätt, centralt eller perifert, beroende på motivationsnivå. Framing sker när människor tillskriver egna bedömningar av olika ord, vilket kan påverka deras beslutfattande och beteende. Med en experimentell design undersöktes hur ett budskap relaterat till Covid-19 med en forskare eller en influencer som förment avsändare kan uppfattas av individer med olika grad av motivation. 136 studenter (80 kvinnor och 56 män) besvarade en webbbaserad enkät. En tvåvägs variansanalys visade, i strid med ELM, att deltagarna instämde i högre utsträckning i ett budskap när avsändaren var en forskare än när avsändaren var en influencer oavsett motivationsnivå. Högmotiverade deltagare uppfattade däremot budskapets språkliga kvalitet som högre än lågmotiverade. Högmotiverade deltagare gjort en skillnad mellan forskare och influencer. Framing kan vara en förklaring till varför deltagarna instämmer mer eller mindre med forskaren och influencern.

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Sharing of information between health care workers improves evidence dissemination and quality of care. One way to share information is through a community of practice (CoP), whereby members interact regularly towards a common goal. Advances in technology allow CoPs to exist virtually, removing the traditional barriers to information sharing. Virtual CoPs have been shown to be effective, but little is known about why health care workers choose to use them — warranting further investigation. This exploratory research consisted of 86 participants and took place in partnership with Health Quality Ontario. At the time of data collection, the organization was developing a virtual CoP for those in health care to learn from one another about quality improvement. The research utilized the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) — a theoretical model of persuasion that posits that one’s motivation and ability determines how information is processed — to guide the study of attitude formation. ELM distinguishes between Central Route information processing, whereby one is highly motivated and able and pays attention to argument quality, and Peripheral Route processing, whereby lower motivation and ability cause one to be persuaded by peripheral messaging cues. The sustainability of resulting attitudes is influenced by the route through which information is processed. Higher motivation to use a virtual CoP was found to be more strongly correlated to the central route than peripheral route, as expected. Post-hoc analysis found that argument quality had the greatest overall influence on attitudes towards virtual CoPs, regardless of the user’s experience level with them. Users with more experience were also influenced by peripheral cues. The chosen theoretical framework provided insight into the determinants of attitude formation, allowing for a better understanding of how to design and position a virtual CoP for those working in health care — a population yet to be studied through ELM. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people with a shared interest who regularly interact to share knowledge and increase their expertise. Virtual CoPs use information and communications technology to support these knowledge-sharing activities, and have been shown to effectively improve knowledge utilization, but researchers have not examined them from a health care practitioner point of view. The present research aimed to explore the factors affecting how attitudes towards virtual CoPs are formed. The elaboration likelihood model was used to guide this study and suggests that a person’s motivation and ability determine the route through which they process information and form attitudes, leading to their intention to use the system. By understanding what influences attitudes, we can better understand how to design and position a virtual CoP for health care practitioners.