Attitude functions in advertising: The interactive role of products and self‐monitoring

Abstract

Attitude objects have been shown to play an important role in attitude functions, with attitudes toward some objects or products serving primarily a single function. These findings imply that products constrain the effects of other variables (e.g., personality differences) on attitude functions. Our experiments investigated whether differences in the functions of high and low self‐monitors' product attitudes will emerge for some product categories but not for others. In Experiment 1, high and low self‐monitors described their attitudes toward products previously identified as serving predominantly utilitarian, social identity, or multiple functions. Coding of attitude descriptions revealed that, for social identity products, high self‐monitors explained their attitudes in more social terms and in less utilitarian terms than did low self‐monitors. However, for utilitarian and for multiple function products, high and low self‐monitors did not differ in their (strongly utilitarian) explanations of their attitudes. In Experiments 2 and 3, high and low self‐monitors wrote advertisements for various products. When advertising multiple function products, high self‐monitors preferred to use social arguments, whereas low self‐monitors preferred to use utilitarian arguments. However, both high and low self‐monitors preferred utilitarian arguments for advertising utilitarian products and social arguments for social identity products. The conditions under which self‐monitoring had its greatest impact on attitude functions are discussed in terms of differences between the task of attitude description (Experiment 1) and persuasive message selection (Experiments 2 and 3).

“This is who i am”: Identity expressiveness and the theory of planned behavior

“…These include self-concept congruity research (Dolich, 1969;Grubb & Hupp, 1968;Sirgy, 1982), symbolic interactionist views on products as social stimuli (Solomon, 1983), the role of products in impression formation and communication (Belk, 1988), symbolic consumption (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1981), attitude functions (Shavitt, 1989;Shavitt, Lowrey & Han, 1992), and the role of social identity in organizational/company identification (Bhattacharya, Rao & Glynn, 1995;Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003). The central tenets underlying these research streams are: 1) that consumers prefer brands associated with a set of personality traits congruent with their own, and 2) that consumers use these brands more or less consciously to express their own identity and values.…”

Preferences for Enhancement Pharmaceuticals: The Reluctance to Enhance Fundamental Traits

“…People adopt a wide variety of products for the purpose of expressing their self-identities (Aaker 1999;Belk 1988;Shavitt et al 1992), and they are likely to forgo previously chosen products when this identity function is no longer being met (Berger and Heath 2007). Consumers' choices are also strongly influenced by salient aspects of their identities (LeBoeuf, Shafir, and Belyavsky 2007).…”

“…People believe that particular stable traits explain much of a person's behavior and that these traits form a person's essential self or soul (Chen, Boucher, and Tapias 2006;Dweck 1999;Haslam, Bastian, and Bissett 2004;Markus 1977). Moreover, people are highly motivated to express their self-identities, often through consumption experiences (Aaker 1999;Belk 1988;Berger and Heath 2007;Celsi, Rose, and Leigh 1993;Shavitt, Lowrey, and Han 1992;Vazire and Gosling 2004). They are also highly motivated to maintain a consistent and stable self-identity and will reject information that challenges this self-identity (Swann 1987;Swann, Stein-Seroussi, and Giesler 1992).…”

Proeminência Da Marca, Automonitoramento E Teoria Da Função De Atitude: Uma Análise Sobre Avaliação Dos Anúncios

“…As pesquisas de Snyder e DeBono (1985), DeBono (1987), Shavitt et al (1992) e Petty e Wegener (1998) têm geralmente se apoiado nesses pressupostos, sugerindo que diferenças de personalidade de automonitoramento tendem a prever diferenças nas funções de atitude. Com base nisso, os estudos das abordagens funcionais (LeBoeuf & Simmons, 2010) se mostram relevantes para a adoção de práticas de apelo em publicidades, pois estas são influenciadas por diversos fatores contingentes à ação administrativa.…”

“…Ainda na abordagem funcional, ponderando pelo prisma das motivações e da formação da atitude, Katz (1960) Especificamente, as funções de ajuste social e de expressão de valores têm sido utilizadas por um amplo leque de interações com consumidores, incluindo avaliações de produtos (Shavitt, Lowrey, & Han, 1992) e processamentos de mensagens publicitárias (Snyder & DeBono, 1985), mas não na avaliação de anúncios com logomarca.…”