The O.J. Simpson “trial of the century ” in the mid-1990s captured the attention of the American populace more than any other public spectacle since the kidnaping of the Lindberg baby in the 1920s. A prominent football player and popular sportscaster was charged with a gruesome double homicide. The attorneys for the prosecution and defense were of various races and genders. The evidence presented on each side was at times amazingly simple, visual, and emotional, and at times was verbal, abstract, and probably incomprehensible to jurors. The witnesses included individuals of diverse styles, demeanors, and credibility. The jurors, the recipients of the messages from these various sources, were themselves a mixed group of people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and personal experiences who had to sift through the trial material and arrive at a decision as to whether the defendant had been proven guilty or not. The context in which all of this took place was at times tense and sad, and at times filled with humor and positive feelings. Not surprisingly, no experiment has ever captured the extraordinary complexity inherent in this situation, yet almost all of the variables present in this trial (and many not present) have been examined in the social psychological literature on attitude formation and change. This chapter provides an overview of research on these diverse variables and addresses the processes by which these variables are thought to result in influence. Although it has become a cliché to say that the attitude construct is the most indispensable concept in

Abstract: We describe an experiment studying the effectiveness of persuasive digital documents, taking mood, exposure time and site design into account. Participants in either a neutral or a positive mood were confronted with a persuasive site. These sites could either be “content only ” or “content plus ” (the latter using some of the information presentation possibilities offered by digital documents). In addition, in a limited exposure condition, participants were given a restricted time to visit the site, while in the unlimited condition, participants were allowed to spend as much time on the site as desired. The results of the experiment showed that both mood and site design had a strong effect on attitude change, while exposure time did not. Participants in a positive mood were more inclined to change their attitude in the direction of the advocated position than participants in a neutral mood. And, participants visiting a content-plus site were more inclined to change their attitude than participants visiting a content-only site. Interestingly, there was an interaction between these two factors, to the effect that the presence of additional information presentation cues was particularly effective for participants in a positive mood.

This study adds to the debate about the valence-based versus the unique and discrete view of feelings. By conducting an experiment using 317 subjects, we compared the differential impact of three different positive feelings on ad effectiveness. Support for the discrete view of feelings was found in the sense that ad- and context-evoked cosiness, excitement and romance had a different impact on ad attitudes. Moreover, in the area of context effects further support for the unique view of feelings was found: the exciting, the romantic and the cosy ad scored best after telling a feeling-congruent story.

This paper begins to answer the call to broaden current theories of individual decision-making by including in them the effects of human mood. Grounding our arguments in psychological literature on the effects of mood on information processing, motivation, and decision heuristics, we develop hypotheses about how mood can significantly affect individuals' use of structured decision protocols. In support of our hypotheses, results from an experimental study of complex decision-making suggest that, in situations where a structured decision protocol is the usual method of decision-making, individuals in moderately negative moods are significantly more likely than those in moderately positive moods to: (1) carefully execute all the steps of a structured decision protocol, (2) execute the steps of a structured decision protocol in the correct order, and (3) rely on the outcome of the structured decision protocol as the primary basis for the decision. We discuss these findings in terms of the...

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Abstract: Substantial evidence indicates that depression focuses attention on the problems that caused the episode, so much that it interferes with the ability to focus on other things. We hypothesized that depression evolved as a response to important, complex problems that could only be solved, if they could be solved at all, with an attentional state that was highly focused for sustained periods. Under this hypothesis, depression promotes analysis and problem-solving by focusing attention on the problem and reducing distractibility. This predicts that attentionally demanding problems will elicit depressed affect in subjects. We also propose two control-process mechanisms by which depression could focus attention and reduce distractibility. Under these mechanisms, depression exerts a force on attention like that of a spring when it is pulled or like a magnet on a steel ball. These mechanisms make different predictions about how depressed people respond emotionally to a task that pulls attention away from their problems. We tested these predictions in a sample of 115 undergraduate students. Consistent with our main prediction, initially non-depressed subjects experienced an increase in their depressed affect when exposed to an attentionally demanding task. Moreover, the overall pattern of results supported the magnet metaphor.

It was hypothesized that priming the self-concept in a persuasion context results in more peripheral information processing because people would rely more on their self-concept. Subjects were presented an ad for an unknown brand of sport shoes that either primed or did not prime subjects ’ self-concept. Results showed that when the self was primed, subjects elaborated more on atypical arguments as compared to typical arguments, whereas total amount of elaboration remained unaffected. Moreover, attitudes towards the brand were more extreme (and favorable), while confidence in these attitudes was lower. These results are consistent with our hypothesis. 2 Automatic Activation of the Self in a Persuasion Context Consumer research has paid little attention to the role of automatic processes in a persuasion context. Although people have a limited processing capacity (Kardes 1998), they are overwhelmed with all sorts of information. This problem is also observed within a marketing-related context: consumers

The impact of presenting high and low-arousal advertising appeals is examined under different priming conditions. The hypotheses tested here are based findings regarding differential hemispheric functions. Based on these findings, it is predicted that response to appeals that differ in valence (negative or positive) will be a function of whether the prime is visual or verbal. Specifically, when participants are primed with a visual task prior to ad exposure, mean liking for positively-valenced ads is higher than mean liking for negativelyvalenced ads. In contrast, when participants are primed with a verbal task prior to ad exposure, mean liking for negatively-valenced ads is higher than liking for positively-valenced ads. Overall these results suggest that the type of task (visual versus verbal) engaged in prior to ad exposure has a significant impact on affective response, and that valence should be considered separately in hypothesizing about the influence of emotional stimuli on such response. 4 In an effort to increase the effectiveness of their promotions, advertisers have used a variety of different emotional appeals in their executions. An anxiety-producing appeal might be used to attract consumers ’ attention, while an upbeat, happy appeal might be developed to

The paper presents an experiment that bridges emotional and analogy-making research. It suggests that relational correspondences may depend on long-lasting emotional states (i.e. mood). In congruence with the research demonstrating different information processing depending on positive and negative mood, the presented experiment shows that participants in positive mood made more attribute correspondences, while participants in negative mood – more relational ones.

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