M.Com. (Industrial Psychology) / The current study investigated, by means of an experiment, the influence of incidental haptic sensations, encountered when completing self-report questionnaires, on formal ratings of an unestablished consumer brand. In total 128 university students (mean age = 20.16 years, males = 31.3%, females = 68.8%) participated in the study. Initially, all the participants completed a pretest self-report questionnaire on standard weighted paper (80gsm). A week later, the same participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups, where Group 1 (n=64) completed a post-test self-report questionnaire on firm paper, and Group 2 (n=64) completed a post-test self-report questionnaire on flimsy paper. The questionnaire scale comprised 30 sets of bipolar pairs of adjectives related to the language association of rigidity and strength. A robust Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) revealed a statistical difference between groups for scores between 80 and 104 on the pre-test, while no effect was found for scores of 109 and upwards. Further support of the hypothesis was evident in kurtosis across groups (Group 1: kurtosis = 0.73 , Group 2: kurtosis = -0.03), which indicated that more participants in Group 1 ('Firm') had formed stronger judgements of the unestablished consumer brand than those in Group 2 ('Flimsy'). In conclusion, it appeared that a physically grounded mental framework, consistent with embodied cognition, had nonconsciously led participants to form stronger product judgements, of an unestablished consumer brand, when encountering an incidental, tactile experience of strength when completing self-report questionnaires in the consumer context.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:11566 |
| Date | 21 June 2014 |
| Creators | Leo, Leigh |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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