Thesis About Persuasion

Cam Nguyen

METHOD

Participants

Participants were _______ (number) undergraduates at the Ohio State University recruited from different courses. _________ were females and ________ were males. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions: sexualized image and cognitive load (n =___), sexualized image and no cognitive load (n = ____), non-sexualized image and cognitive load (n = ___), and non-sexualized image and no cognitive load (n = _____).

Design

The experiment employed a 2x2 posttest factorial design. The two independent variables were sexualization and cognitive load. The dependent variables were persuasion, ad’s ability to gain attention and increase interest in the product, ad’s emotional impact,

Persuasion is a shift in beliefs and attitudes that is positive in response to a persuasive message. Adapted from from Till and Bustler (2000) and Praxmarer (2001), persuasion is measured by asking the participants to express their agreement on a seven point scale (strongly disagree-strongly agree) to statements such as “I find the product persuasive.” There were four statements total for this measure.

Ad’s ability to gain attention. This is the ability of the ad to draw attention from the viewer. Participants express their responses on a seven point scale (not at all to very much) to the question, “Do you think this ad was attention getting?” (Reichert, Heckler & Jackson 2001).

Ad’s ability to increase interest in the product. This is the ad’s ability to make the viewers more interested in the product. Participants express their responses on a seven point scale (decreased considerably to increased considerably) to the question, “How was your interest level in the product affected?” (Reichert, Heckler & Jackson 2001).

Ad’s emotional impact. This is the ability of the ad to have an emotional impact on the viewer. Participants express their responses on a seven point scale (not at all to very powerful) to the question, “How powerful do you think the ad was?” (Reichert, Heckler & Jackson