1
Selling Sustainability: Commercial Self-Persuasion and The Role of Knowledge and Involvement
Joshua L. Bar-El
Graduate School of Communication, University of Amsterdam Persuasive Communication Thesis
Jeroen Loman June 26, 2020
2
AbstractThis research paper details an experimental study exploring the effect of using self-persuasion (vs. direct persuasion) on the perceived persuasive intent of an advertisement and purchase intentions for the sustainable personal care product advertised. In addition, it takes into account the roles of involvement and knowledge both as moderators and main effects. Participants were presented with a replicated Facebook sponsored post, showing the product along with a caption and text overlay either in the form of a question or a statement, followed by questions regarding the relevant dependent variables. Results failed to prove significant effects of type of persuasion but did show main effects for knowledge and involvement. Implications for future research and societal relevance of the findings are discussed.
Keywords: sustainability, self-persuasion, commercial, purchase intention, perceived persuasive intent, knowledge, involvement
3
Selling Sustainability: Commercial Self-Persuasion and The Role of Knowledge and InvolvementAs our society grows aware of the environmental impact of consumer goods, demand for sustainable products has steadily been rising in recent decades (International Trade Center, 2019). In a large-scale 2019 study by Accenture, 72% of respondents claimed to actively be buying more eco-friendly products as compared to five years ago, and 81% expected this increase would grow even further over the coming five years. Even though these products tend to be more expensive (Benveniste, 2019), more than half of consumers do not mind spending extra for a sustainable alternative
(GlobalWebIndex, 2018), proving that consumers value the sustainable quality of the goods. The sales numbers for sustainable product categories also reflect these findings, as half of all growth in consumer packaged goods (CPG) sales from 2013-2018 came from sustainability-marketed products (NYU Stern Center, 2019). In more than 90% of CPG product categories, sustainable products showed faster growth than traditional products, averaging an astonishing 5.6 times the growth speed as compared to their non-sustainable counterparts (NYU Stern Center, 2019).
Of sustainable product categories, personal care products and household cleaning products are the most researched by eco-conscious consumers, with at least 73% of them checking to make sure the product is sustainable before purchasing (GlobalWebIndex, 2018). These two are the only
non-consumable categories where more than half of the customers want to make sure they get a sustainable option (GlobalWebIndex, 2018), clearly indicating that their huge demand for these products. They are however also showing slower growth rates than simple products like toilet paper and bottled drinks (NYU Stern Center, 2018). This means there may be an underserved market and a need to accelerate the transition to sustainability within these categories.
Whereas over 70% of consumers recognize that the main responsibility for green consumption lies with the individual, the manufacturers and distributors of products come right after, with 52%
4
saying they should be held accountable for their impact on the environment (GlobalWebIndex, 2018). Businesses have been feeling the impact of these changing consumer wishes, with more than 90% of CEOs today saying sustainability has a big influence on their company’s success and profits (Hoffman, 2018). It is clear then that businesses making an effort to work and produce more sustainably attract more customers (Hoffman, 2018).Unfortunately, seeking financial opportunity and in hopes of attracting more customers, there are businesses trying to present themselves and their products as if they are doing more to protect the environment than they really are. This practice is called greenwashing and could be defined
as ”advertising or marketing that is misleading consumers with regards to the ecological impact of the products they buy” (Gillespie, 2008). By making false green claims, this greenwashing has caused consumers to become more skeptical of sustainable claims made to sell (Ulusoy, & Barretta, 2016). As consumers notice companies are only pretending, they start to disbelieve claims even from those that do really uphold these values. This skepticism hinders the effectiveness of marketing strategies used for actual sustainable products (Polonsky et al, 2010), which leads consumers to stop buying these green products (Nguyen et al., 2019; Obermiller, 2005) for which there is a real need. Not only does this bear a reduction in the market share for green products, but in the long term this may even negatively affect the public’s engagement with environmental issues on a wider scale (Gillespie, 2008).
For the sake of accelerating the transition to a sustainable world, it is therefore important to find a way around the skepticism that arises when consumers see a message promoting sustainable products and identify key factors that can strengthen the odds of a persuasive attempt - with the goal of sustainable consumption - being successful. Primarily, the persuasive messages currently being used for commercial goals tend to apply direct-persuasion, whereby the message content is designed to convince the recipient to change their mind in favor of performing a desired behavior by providing arguments for
5
them. The problem of using this method is that the recipients of the message recognize a persuasive intent (Aronson, 1999; Dillard & Shen, 2005). This elicits counter arguing and reactance (Loman et al., 2018), and reduces the persuasive power of the message (Dillard & Shen, 2005) as people try to downplay the importance of arguments in efforts of staying within their current frame of mind (Brehm, 1996).To avoid these issues, we should explore alternative methods such as self-persuasion, wherein the target of persuasion produces the means for that persuasion themselves (Loman. et. al., 2018; Briñol, McCaslin, & Petty, 2012; Maio & Thomas, 2007) rather than being persuaded by an external source (Mussweiler & Neumann, 2000). By asking questions rather than providing statements, the recipient of a message is encouraged to generate their own arguments as to why performing the desired behavior or holding a desired belief would be beneficial. When arguments are generated internally, their validity tends to be evaluated less critically as compared to arguments provided by an external source (Loman et. al., 2018; Mussweiler & Neumann, 2000) leading to a higher likelihood of it being accepted. In addition, attitude change inspired by one’s own actions and thoughts have been found to be more persistent and predictive of future behavior (Petty & Cacioppo, 1979), meaning self-persuasion would have more potential to significantly affect consumers future purchasing behavior. In the case of selling sustainability, a self-persuasive effort would prompt consumers to come up with reasons as to why buying the sustainable product would be beneficial.
To date, research on self-persuasion has been relatively limited, with the persuasion method primarily being applied in health settings. For example, Müller et al. (2009) found it is a more effective way to inhibit smoking behavior than direct-persuasion. Using a question format instead of statements has also been proven to increase exercise behavior (Williams et al., 2000) and decrease alcohol
6
regards to these health related domains, most people are well-aware of what behavior would bebeneficial for them (Bernritter, 2017) and as such, can easily generate arguments for why performing these behaviors would be beneficial to them. In addition, they are self-involving behaviors (Bernritter, 2017), meaning people are motivated to think about them.
Within the commercial domain, research on self-persuasion is limited to relatively few
experimental studies. The amount of research here reflects the amount this method is used to actually sell, and a possible reason as to why this method is so scarce within advertising/marketing may be that for most products, it can be hard for consumers to generate arguments in favor of a product they have no knowledge of and no involvement with. These factors are of importance, because a high level of knowledge about the product allows people to generate stronger arguments in favor of that product, and as a result, the positive attitude change towards it tends to be stronger (Kumar, Manrai & Manrai, 2017; Petty & Cacioppo, 1983). As for the level of involvement, a highly involved person will have more motivation to come up with arguments (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), as any positive change would be more personally relevant and in their favor. With self-persuasion relying on the generation of arguments, the chance of it being triggered increases when there is a higher likelihood of them actually being
generated.
In regard to the commercial domain, the market for sustainable products adds an interesting element not present in traditional consumers psychology. Specifically, people know that by choosing a sustainable product, they are making a responsible choice that will be beneficial both to the
environment and themselves (Marchand & Walker, 2008). For example, people have been found to think of eco-friendly consumables as being better for their health as compared to their traditional alternatives (Neergaard et al., 2002). These easily recognizable benefits and the perceived personal consequences offer us a unique chance to explore the effects of self-persuasion in a commercial setting, and in this study we will be doing so by comparing the effects of a self-persuasive message to a
direct-7
persuasive message, on consumers’ purchase intentions for a sustainable personal care product, as well as the perceived persuasive intent of the message. This product category was chosen for reasons of the before-mentioned underserved market and need for faster transition to sustainability. Personal care products were chosen over household cleaning products, as they would hold more personal relevance to the most amount of people. In addition, this study will explore the influence knowledge andinvolvement may have on the purchase intention and the perceived persuasive intent, as well as their moderating effects on the relationship between type of persuasion and these dependent variables. Both of these have an effect on the processing of the message and could possibly influence the strength of a persuasive attempt (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
Research into this topic has a high scientific relevance as it would fill several gaps in the
literature and be of use to multiple fields. First and foremost, it would extend the under researched field of self-persuasion, currently limited to no more than a handful of modern empirical studies. Also, it would offer more insight into the consumer psychology by taking this persuasion method out of a health related- and into a commercial setting. Finally, research into this topic would shed light on the role of knowledge and involvement within this domain. Besides its’ academic purposes, there is a strong societal relevance as it would help marketeers with getting their sustainable products into consumers’ hands which might benefit not only the seller and consumer, but also the environment and society at large. In light of this purpose, I will aim to answer the following research question:
RQ: How does using self-persuasion (vs. direct persuasion) in advertising affect the purchase
intention for sustainable products, and what is the role of knowledge and involvement in this relationship?
8
Theoretical framework Self-Persuasion
The power of self-persuasion lies within the fact that the means of persuasion originates from within a person rather than from an external source (Aronson, 1999). Rather than delivering favorable arguments for a behavior in the form of a statement, as is the case with direct-persuasion, a persuasive message using a self-persuasion strategy would ask a question regarding that specific behavior (Loman et al., 2018). The goal of doing so would be for the target to generate their own arguments in favor of that desired behavior. In comparison with direct-persuasion, this has three main advantages (Loman et al., 2018).
To start, people are less likely to detect and correct arguments when they are generated by themselves than when they are provided by an external source (Loman et. al., 2018; Mussweiler & Neumann, 2000; Wilson & Brekke, 1994). The immersion of a thought happens so naturally that we do not reflect on our own thoughts as we do on those generated by someone else. This leads to us being less critical of the validity of our own thoughts, and thus we are less likely to reject them. In contrast, because our judgement is often the result of internal processing, information that is provided from an external source is more likely to be seen as contaminating (Mussweiler & Neumann, 2000).
The second advantage of self-persuasion is that it does not elicit a state of psychological reactance (Loman et al., 2018). As a question is being asked rather than a statement being made, the message itself does not tell the recipient what they should or should not think. Thereby, the message is able to maneuver past a recipients’ feeling of having their freedom of choice threatened (Brehm, 1996). Because the recipient notices that their freedom of choice is still present, they feel more comfortable with the message and are more willing to process its’ contents (Wellins & McGinnies, 1977).
The final reason why self-persuasion is more effective, is that while generating arguments, people tend to think of the reasons that are most compelling to them personally (Loman et. al., 2018;
9
Briñol, McCaslin, & Petty, 2012; Greenwald & Albert, 1968). As compared to a direct-persuasionmessage where the designer of the message would have to guess the most applicable and universally accepted arguments, the arguments generated as a result of a self-persuasive message are tailored to the knowledge, beliefs and values the specific target already holds.
In sum, self-persuasion has more potential than direct-persuasion to offer arguments eligible to have a high persuasive power to the specific target, thereby increasing the chance of high purchase intentions. For these reasons, the first hypothesis of this study states:
H1: Type of persuasion will influence the purchase intention such that participants seeing an
advertisement with a self-persuasive message will report higher levels of purchase intention for the sustainable product than those seeing an advertisement with a direct-persuasive message.
Perceived persuasive intent
The goal of any message is to elicit change, or in other words persuade the recipient of the message towards performing a desired behavior or holding a desired belief. However, as we value the beliefs that we already hold at any given time, people want to stay in within their current frame of mind (Brehm, 1996). When they recognize that a message is trying to persuade them, they will try to resist this persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1977) as the external source makes the information feel as contaminating (Mussweiler & Neumann, 2000). This discussion leads to the second hypothesis:
H2: Type of persuasion will influence perceived persuasive intent such that participants seeing an
advertisement with a self-persuasive message will report lower levels of perceived persuasive intent of the message than those seeing an advertisement with a direct-persuasive message.
10
Knowledge
It has been found in numerous studies that knowledge is a strong predictor of the recipients’ ability to process the message (MacInnis et al., 1991; Johnson, 1994) and their willingness to accept the conclusions of a message (Eagly, 1974). It should be clear than, that the knowledge one holds about the topic of a persuasive message, affects the persuasive power a message may have on the recipient. When there is a high level of knowledge, one is able to accept or reject arguments based on their validity and so the persuasive power would be present under the condition that the arguments are strong. In opposition, when there is insufficient knowledge, the message itself cannot even be processed effectively and in such a case, it would be illogical to assume any persuasive power of that message.
In the case of sustainable products, high levels of knowledge have been found to increase purchase intentions in several studies (McEachern & Warnaby, 2008; Kumar, Manrai & Manrai, 2017). This might be due to the fact that when consumers have higher levels of sustainable knowledge, they tend to recognize the importance and weigh environmental attributes of a product more heavily when making a purchasing decision (Kim & Damhorst, 1998). As a result of these findings, the third hypothesis states:
H3: Knowledge will positively affect the purchase intention such that participants with a high
level of knowledge about the sustainable product category will report higher levels of purchase intention for the sustainable product than those with a low level of knowledge about the sustainable product category.
Although we have established reasons to expect a positive effect of knowledge on purchase intentions in any persuasive attempt, the nature of self-persuasion might welcome the strengthening role of knowledge for a self-persuasive message especially. Consider that since the internal generation
11
of arguments plays such a central role within this type of persuasion (Godin et al., 2012), the importance of knowledge is amplified. The arguments a person could potentially generate in favor of choosing a sustainable product are a result of their existing knowledge about that sustainable product, and so a high level of knowledge would allow for more fact-based arguments, leading to stronger arguments. As these arguments are tailored, someone with high knowledge could produce arguments of the highest possible relevance to themselves, even more effective than the arguments a direct-persuasion message could try to present. Once strong arguments are generated, the before mentioned advantages of self-persuasion apply. Moreover, when there is a low level of knowledge, it will be hard for the target to generate valid arguments, so a persuasive message might not work. Essentially, this shows self-persuasion’s dependency on knowledge. In essence, more knowledge on a topic will allow consumers to produce strong arguments, which has been proven to positively affect the acceptance of a message (Kumar, Manrai & Manrai, 2017; Johnson, 1994) and therefor the strength of the persuasion. For this reason, the fourth hypothesis states:H4: Knowledge will positively influence the relationship between type of persuasion and
purchase intention such that the positive effect of a high level of knowledge on purchase intention will be greater for participants seeing the self-persuasive advertisement than those seeing the direct-persuasion advertisement.
Involvement
Besides ability, the recipients’ motivation to process the information is also indicative of the success of that message (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). When people have a high level of involvement with the relevant information, they tend to be more receptive to the message (Petty & Cacioppo, 1979). This may be because when something has a high personal relevance to someone, they find there is more
12
benefit in paying attention (Celsi & Olson, 1988). Not only are people more willing to actually process the message, but when this message holds a favorable position to a highly involved recipient, their acceptance of the conclusion increases more than when there are low levels of involvement (Petty & Cacioppo, 1979). As a majority of people already hold a positive attitude towards sustainableconsumption (Ferguson et al., 2017), involvement with sustainability should have a positive effect on persuasion in any case of selling sustainable goods. High levels of involvement have also been proven to enhance message processing and promote systematic processing (Johnson, 1994) of the arguments, leading to more significant attitude change (Petty & Cacioppo, 1979). Finally, literature on this topic has found that when consumers see sustainable consumption as something relevant to their self-identity, they tend to have greater purchase intentions for sustainable products (Kang et al., 2013). For these reasons, it is stated in the fifth hypothesis that:
H5: Involvement will positively affect the purchase intentions such that participants with a high
level of involvement with sustainability will report higher levels of purchase intention for the sustainable product than those with a low level of involvement with sustainability.
For self-persuasion however, involvement has been found to increase the strength of the persuasion in comparison to direct-persuasion (Bernritter et al., 2017) in a study on tipping behavior. A possible explanation for this is that when a topic is of high personal relevance, attitude change has been found to be governed by issue-relevant arguments as people want to hold ‘’correct’’ and defensible opinions (Petty, Cacioppo & Goldman, 1981). When personal relevance is low, peripheral cues tend to be more important so self-persuasion would be as good as useless. This shows the importance of involvement for this method, because only when someone is involved with the message content, will the potential of a self-persuasive message come to fruition (Petty, Cacioppo & Goldman, 1981). This
13
assumption is in line with the fact that a vast majority of the previous research proving the advantages over direct-persuasion looked at health related behavior change. The desired outcome of these experiments would be very beneficial to the participants wellbeing and therefor they tended to be in a higher state of involvement automatically. These reasons lead to the sixth and final hypothesis:H6: Involvement will positively influence the relationship between type of persuasion and
purchase intention such that the positive effect of a high level of involvement on purchase intention will be greater for participants seeing the self-persuasive advertisement than those seeing the direct-persuasion advertisement.
Figure 1
14
Method Participants and design
The only criteria for participation was an age of 18 years or older. Of 235 participants, 50 were excluded from analysis as they did not complete the survey in full or were marked as spam by the data collection software. This brought the total number of participants in the final sample to 185 (133 female, 52 male, age range 18-74 years, M = 27.91, SD = 9.69). Participants were recruited either via email, Facebook survey groups or survey exchange websites, and randomly assigned to one of two conditions (direct-persuasion/self-persuasion). To incentivize participation, a €10 gift card was promised (and later awarded) to two winners, to be randomly selected from a pool of people willing to leave their email address, after data collection was completed.
An online experiment (questionnaire) with a single factor and two moderators was conducted to test the hypotheses regarding the effects of the independent variable type of persuasion on the
dependent variables purchase intention and perceived persuasive intent, as well as the roles of the moderators knowledge and involvement.
Procedure
All participants read a short recruitment text inviting them to a study on product choice, making them aware of the chance to win a €10 gift card and finally offering a link to the study. Qualtrics
software with a university association was used to collect the data. On the landing page, respondents were presented with a formal factsheet containing all their rights. They then read an informed consent page and after agreeing to the terms, read a cover story telling them material was being tested for an upcoming experiment. It was requested to take the time viewing the content and stated questions about it would follow. Participants were then randomly allocated to one of the two experimental conditions and depending on their condition, saw one of two manipulations of the stimuli. On the following pages, the dependent variables purchase intention and perceived persuasive intent were
15
measured, followed by moderators knowledge and involvement. Each construct was presented on a separate page. Finally, a manipulation check was conducted, and demographic information was requested. Before closing the questionnaire, participants were debriefed and made aware of the condition they were assigned to. All data was collected anonymously, and no IP addresses were stored.Stimuli
A generic brand and product were created for the purpose of this experiment in order to avoid any existing and confounding brand attitudes. Both conditions saw the same simulated Facebook image post along with differing captions and overlay text. The choice to host the experiment in a social media setting was motivated by the fact that advertising is increasingly shifting towards social platforms (Accenture, 2016), and therefore the ecological validity of the present study would be highest in such a setting. Of all social media platforms in the world, Facebook is currently the biggest with almost 2.5 billion users (Statista, 2020), so this was the platform chosen for the current experiment as to offer the strongest external validity.
As with any other ad, the stimuli showed the page/brand logo and name, followed by a ‘’Sponsored’’ tag. The brand created for this study was ‘’Eco Care’’ and the product was a body wash with green/nature colored branding and ‘’100% sustainable body wash’’ written on the bottle. The image showed a bottle standing on a wooden platform with a green plant in the background. Between the page name and the picture was the caption that differentiated the two experimental conditions. A matching text overlay was also placed on the picture itself, as to make sure the participants did not miss the detail differing the conditions. For the direct-persuasion condition, the caption read ‘’Get Eco Care 100% sustainable bodywash and contribute to a better world.’’ and the text overlay on the picture said ‘Eco Care Bodywash. Good for the world.’’. The caption in the self-persuasion condition asked ‘’What are the benefits of choosing a sustainable body wash?’’, accompanied by ‘’Why go for a sustainable
16
bodywash?’’ as text overlay on the picture. Other than these texts, all links, buttons, likes, comments, and shares were kept consistent. For the exact stimuli, see appendix 2.Measures
For all following factor analyses significance was determined at a eigenvalue of 1 (should be higher), and reliability analyses were determined at a significance level of 0.05 (should be lower).
Purchase intention. In order to measure the purchase intentions for the sustainable product, a three item scale was adapted from Kim (2009) and measured the extent to which participants agreed with three statements in a randomized order. Examples of these statements are “If Eco Care bodywash was available, I would buy it.” and “I plan to buy Eco Care bodywash.”. Agreement with the statements was measured on 7-point Likert scales ranging from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. A factor analysis with principal axis factoring confirmed a single underlying factor based on the eigenvalue (EV = 2.51) and a clear turning point after the first component on the scree plot. This factor explained 84% of the variance in the items. The items were found to form a reliable scale (Cronbach’s Alpha = .90, M = 4.20, SD = 1.25) and with no improvement being possible by deleting items. The scale was created by averaging the three measured items, so a higher score indicates greater purchase intentions for the sustainable product.
Perceived persuasive intent. Perceived persuasive intent was measured using a four item scale adapted from Loman et al. (2018). Participants reported to what extent they agreed with statements like “The post tried to make a decision for me.” and “The post tried to manipulate me.”. Items were presented in a randomized order and measured using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. Using principal axis factoring, a factor analysis showed that these items formed one underlying factor with an eigenvalue of 2.82, which explained 70% of the variance in the scores. The scree plot also showed a sharp turning point after this first factor. The four items proved to form a reliable scale (Cronbach’s Alpha = .86, M = 2.93, SD = 1.32) and were averaged to get a score for
17
perceived persuasive intent. The scale could not be improved by deleting items. A lower score would mean participants perceived the message as less persuasive.Knowledge. A six item scale by Kang et al. (2013) was adapted to fit this study. From that scale, three items in randomized order were presented. Agreement to statements like “I am quite familiar with sustainable personal care products.” and “I have learned a lot about sustainable personal care
products.” were measured on the same 7-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. A factor analysis with principal axis factoring confirmed a single factor based on the eigenvalue (EV = 2.62), accounting for 87% of variance. Reliability analysis proved the scale was strong (Cronbach’s Alpha = .93, M = 3.97, SD = 1.52), and so it was constructed by averaging the scores for the three items. Deleted items could not have improved the reliability of the scale. A higher average for these items would mean the participant had a higher level of knowledge of the sustainable product. To get low and high values, a new variable was created by doing a median split (Mdn = 4).
Involvement. Involvement was also measured using three items adapted from Schuhwerk & Lefkokk-Hagius (1995). Participants had to indicate to what extent they agreed with statements like “I am concerned about the environment.” and “The condition of the environment affects my life.” on 7-point Likert scales ranging from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. Using principal axis factoring, a factor analysis showed a single factor with an eigenvalue of 2.34. This factor explained for 78% of variance in the item scores. These items formed a reliable scale (Cronbach’s Alpha = .85, M = 5.64, SD = 1.03) and so a total scale was constructed by taking the average of the three scores. A higher average would mean there was a higher level of involvement with sustainability. The scale could not be
improved by deleting items. Again, a median split (Mdn = 5.67) was done to create a new variable with low and high values.
18
Manipulation check
The type of persuasion was the exclusive manipulation within this study, so the only
manipulation check necessary was to check whether participants did in fact experience the caption and text overlay in the stimuli to be written in the form of a statement or question. The question “What form was the text on the post written in?” was used to check for this. Although 185 participants were equally divided into either the direct-persuasion condition (N = 93) showing a statement, or the self-persuasion condition (N = 92) showing a question, 133 participants (72%) chose statement as opposed to question when asked what form the post they saw was written in. Within the direct-persuasion condition, 85% answered statement and thus got correctly answered the question, however in the self-persuasion condition, 59% also reported seeing a statement, meaning they answered incorrectly. As only 41% in this condition chose the right answer, we have to conclude that the self-persuasion stimuli were not experienced differently, and our manipulation failed.
Analysis
A single Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to test all hypotheses. Purchase intention and perceived persuasive intent were assigned as dependent variables, with knowledge and involvement as fixed factors. Assumptions for conducting a MANOVA were met.
Results Randomization check
To make sure no confounding variables played a role, randomization checks were conducted for age and gender on the manipulated variable type of persuasion. For the association between type of persuasion and gender, chi-square test was conducted. The Fisher’s Exact showed a p-value of 1, indicating that there was so association. To test for association between type of persuasion and age, an independent sample t-test was used. No significant differences in age were found between the direct-persuasion condition (M = 28.13, SD = 9.67) and the self-direct-persuasion condition (M = 27.70, SD = 9.76);
19
t(183) = .30, p = .76, indicating that there was no association here either. For knowledge, a chi-square test did not find a association with gender as the Fisher’s Exact Test showed a p-value of .52, and an independent samples T-test showed there were no differences in age between low and high knowledge participants with low knowledge participants having an average age of 28.20 (SD = 10.13) and high knowledge participants being 27.55 on average (SD = 9.16); t(183)=.46, p = .65. A chi-square test for involvement and gender also reported no association with the Fisher’s Exact Test having a p-value of .63. The independent samples T-test also showed there was no differences in age for low and highly involved participants with low involved participants having an average age of 27.23 (SD = 8.71) and highlyinvolved participants averagely aged 28.67 (SD = 10.67); t(183)=-1.01, p = .31. As a result of these findings, gender and age were not considered as covariates for further analysis.
Main analysis
The 2 (self-persuasion vs. direct-persuasion) x 2 (low knowledge vs. high knowledge) x 2 (low involvement vs. high involvement) between-subjects MANOVA on both dependent variables (purchase intention and perceived persuasive intent) yielded no main effect for type of persuasion, F(2, 176) = 1.29, p = .28, partial η2 = .01. For knowledge and involvement, significant main effects were found, F(2,176) = 5.67, p > 0.01, partial η2 = .06 and F(2,176) = 5.70, p > 0.01, partial η2 = .06, respectively. As for the interaction effects between knowledge and type of persuasion, no main effect was found, F(2,176) = .45, p = .64, partial η2 > 0.01. Finally, no main effect was found for the interaction effect between involvement and type of persuasion, F(2,176) = 1.51, p = .22, partial η2 = .02.
Purchase intention
It was hypothesized that type of persuasion would influence the purchase intentions such that participants in the self-persuasion condition would report higher levels of purchase intention for the sustainable product than those in the direct-persuasion condition. Between the two conditions, no significant difference was found in the scores for purchase intention, F(1,177) = 2.44, p = .12, partial η2
20
= .01, with participants in the self-persuasion condition reporting an average of 3.99 (SD = 1.23) and participants in the direct-persuasion condition reporting an average of 4.42 (SD = 1.25). The descriptive statistics show that on average, those in the direct-persuasion condition actually scored almost half a point higher, but this difference was not significant so we cannot say there is any effect of type of persuasion on purchase intention. Therefore, hypothesis 1 was rejected, meaning a self-persuasive message does not increase the intentions to buy the sustainable product as opposed to a direct-persuasive message.It was stated in the third hypothesis that a high level of knowledge would lead to significantly higher purchase intentions as opposed to a low level of knowledge. This assumption was met, as the participants’ level of knowledge did in fact lead to a significant difference, F(1,177) = 9.35, p > 0.01, partial η2 = .05. Participants with a low level of knowledge averaged a score of 3.90 (SD = 1.18), whereas those with a high level averaged 4.59 (SD = 1.24). This means that when participants had a higher level of knowledge about the sustainable product, they were more willing to buy that product. For this reason, hypothesis 3 was confirmed.
As per the fourth hypothesis, it was expected that knowledge would moderate the relationship between type of persuasion and purchase intentions. The hypothesis stated that a high level of
knowledge would complement the effects of self-persuasion as compared to direct-persuasion, and thereby amplify the increase in purchase intention for participants seeing the self-persuasive advertisement. This interaction effect between knowledge and type of persuasion turned out to be nonsignificant, F(1,177) = .33, p = .56, partial η2 > 0.01. We can therefor say that when participants had a high level of knowledge, this did not lead to a different relationship between type of persuasion and purchase intention. Consequently, hypothesis 4 had to be rejected.
The fifth hypothesis stated that involvement would have a main effect and positively influence the purchase intentions for the sustainable product. These expectations were met as the effect of
21
involvement on purchase intention was found to be significant, F(1,177) = 6.15, p = 0.1, partial η2 = .03. Low involved participants reported an average purchase intention of 3.90 (SD = 1.24) while highly involved participants scored an average of 4.53 (SD = 1.19). When the participant reported being highly involved with sustainability, this led them to show greater intentions to buy the sustainable product. As a result, hypothesis 5 was confirmed.In the final hypothesis, it was stated that involvement would also have a moderating role on the relationship between type of persuasion and purchase intentions. Similar to hypothesis 4, an increased level involvement would complement the effects of a self-persuasive message and thereby cause a significant increase in the purchase intentions for participants in the self-persuasion condition especially. The results show however, that no interaction effect of type of persuasion and involvement was found, F(1,177) = .03, p = .85, partial η2 > 0.01. When participants were highly involved, this did not lead to any significant change in the relationship of type of persuasion and purchase intentions. This led to the rejection of hypothesis 6.
Perceived persuasive intent
The nature of a question in a self-persuasive message as opposed to a statement led us to expect a decrease in perceived persuasive intent for those in the self-persuasion condition as opposed to the direct-persuasion condition. No significant difference in scores for perceived persuasive intent were found between the type of persuasion conditions, F(1,77) = .15, p = .70, partial η2 > .01, with participants in the self-persuasion condition scoring an average of 2.95 (SD = 1.34) and participants in the direct-persuasion condition reporting an average of 2.91 (SD = 1.32). This means that whether participants saw a self-persuasive message or a direct-persuasive message, they did not notice any difference in the intention to persuade them towards buying the sustainable product. As we can not assume any effect, hypothesis 2 had to be rejected.
22
The MANOVA also gave us some results we did not draw hypotheses on but are worthreporting. Knowledge did not affect the perceived persuasive intent directly, F(1,177) = 3.20, p = .17, partial η2 = 0.01 or as a moderator between type of persuasion and perceived persuasive intent,
F(1,177) = .46, p = .57, partial η2 = > 0.01. For involvement, a significant difference between low and high involvement was found in perceived persuasive intent, F(1,177) = 8.90, p = 0.02, partial η2 = 0.03. No interaction effect was found for type of persuasion and involvement when looking at the perceived persuasive intent, F(1,177) = 5.07, p = .09, partial η2 = 0.02.
Table 1
Sample Means and Standard Deviations by Condition
Type of persuasion
Direct-persuasion Self-persuasion
Low knowledge High knowledge Low knowledge High knowledge
Low involvement (N = 29) High involvement (N = 17) Low involvement (N = 19) High involvement (N = 28) Low involvement (N = 35) High involvement (N = 22) Low involvement (N = 14) High involvement (N = 21) M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD Purchase intention 3.95 1.24 4.18 1.32 4.35 1.32 5.08 .87 3.43 1.03 4.35 1.01 4.38 1.31 4.29 1.42 Perceived persuasive intent M SD M SD 2.91 1.31 2.94 1.34
Conclusion & Discussion
In the introduction of this paper, the question “how does using self-persuasion (vs. direct persuasion) in advertising affect the purchase intention for sustainable products, and what is the role of knowledge and involvement in this relationship?” was posed. The findings of this study show that the first part of that question can be answered as: it does not. In contrast to its effectiveness in a wide variety of contexts like undergraduate education (Greenwald & Albert, 1968), decreasing alcohol intake (Loman et al., 2018), promoting smoking cessation (Müller, 2009) and a clean local environment (Damen et al., 2015), self-persuasion does not seem to be as effective as a means to sell a sustainable personal
23
care product. A majority of the findings in this experiment run counter to the expectations laid out in the theoretical framework of this paper. Of the six hypotheses, the four related to the type of persuasion had to be rejected.First and foremost, self-persuasion has been found to increase persuasive strength (Aronson, 1999) in many different cases, so we expected that when translated to a commercial setting, this method could also increase the strength of persuasion towards buying a sustainable product. As self-persuasion has been found to increase self-persuasion levels by incentivizing the internal generation of arguments (Godin et al., 2012) rather than from an external source, we expected that people would experience less of a ‘being sold to’ feeling and therefor would be more open to accepting the conclusion that buying the sustainable product would be beneficial. The results of this study could not confirm this. Using this method also did not decrease the perceived persuasive intent of the advertisement, which might hint towards the advantages of self-persuasion not being experienced by the participants within the current study. It is surprising to see that no difference was experienced as regards to the persuasive intent, as it is within the nature of a question to be evoke less reactance (Loman et al, 2018). We should consider however, that regardless of the texts’ format, participants were presented with an advertisement of which people recognize the goal is to sell and thus persuade. If this were not made clear by the presented product itself, the ‘sponsored’ tag above the post could have given this away. The disclosure of content being sponsored has been found to increase perceived persuasive intent and decrease purchase intentions (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016), so it could be possible that the fact it is an advertisement caused participants in both conditions to automatically assume persuasive intent.
The roles of knowledge and involvement were also different from what as expected. Of the six hypotheses, only two were confirmed, and these were the direct effects of knowledge and involvement on purchase intention. In line with the literature on selling sustainable products by McEachern & Warnaby (2009) and Kumar, Manrai & Manrai (2017), knowledge lead to an increase of purchase
24
intention. Involvement proved to have a similar effect to knowledge, as a high level of involvement increased intentions to purchase the sustainable product. This finding confirms the conclusion drawn in previous studies.Both these variables increased the purchase intention by themselves, and as such we assume they increased persuasion levels. However, taking them into consideration as moderators when
exploring the effects of type of persuasion on purchase intention did not provide any significant results. Whether participants had a high level of knowledge did not affect their willingness to buy the
sustainable product in relation to seeing either a self-persuasive message or a direct-persuasive message. A high level of involvement also did not affect the performance of type of persuasion on purchase intentions. We should note though, that this effect was partly dependent on the finding for the first hypothesis.
A large factor that influenced the results of these analyses was the failed manipulation. With 37% of the sample answering incorrectly when asked what form the text was written in (59% of people in the self-persuasion condition thought their stimuli was written in the statement form), it seems that participants did not pay enough attention to the text in the advertisement, which was supposed to differentiate the conditions and for the self-persuasion condition, prompt the generation of arguments on which this method is dependent. A possible explanation for this could be that our sample consisted for a large part of students filling out the questionnaire in exchange for their own research being participated in. We might therefor assume that most of them could have been in a rush and did not spend a lot of time looking at the stimuli. It could also be that the product itself does not elicit a significant state of reactance as it is an everyday product with relatively small impact in a single purchase.
A problem arises hereby in terms of answering our research question, because if people did not notice that the advertisement contained a question, this probably means that they also did not answer
25
that question. The power of self-persuasion lies in the ability to produce strong and recipient specific arguments that may outperform the presented arguments of direct-persuasion. When the question that is supposed to elicit self-persuasion does not get any attention and is not answered, no arguments will be generated. If no argument is associated with the content of the message - in this case the purchasing of the sustainable product – there will be no persuasive power of the message except the peripheral effects of the image which are also present in the direct-persuasion condition. In that condition, even if the argument is not strong or justifiable for all recipients, it still holds more value than no argument at all.Although the failed manipulation in this experiment might have caused participants to overlook the benefits of self-persuasion, this does offer us some practical insight for the commercial domain for which we explored its’ effects. Within most of the health related studies that self-persuasion has been proven to work for times over, participants were presented with the stimuli in lab settings in which they were instructed to answer the questions. Even in Loman et al. (2018), where it was proven that simply posing a question in a media message for could trigger self-persuasion, participants were exposed to the stimuli for a long time in relation this study. In the world of advertising though, attention is scarce, and most consumers will spend the least amount of time possible looking at advertising. Especially in the social media setting the stimuli of this study was based on, people tend to be scrolling through their timelines looking for content other than advertising (Al-Menayes, 2015). In that case, delivering a quick argument in the form of a statement might actually trigger their interest more.
This does however not cross out self-persuasion for any commercial goal. Involvement for this study was measured on the level of issue sustainability, for which a lot of people care (Ferguson, 2017) as proven by the involvement average of 5.67, however the sustainable bodywash used in the
experiment might not elicit much excitement as people perceive it may not have the biggest effect on the state of the environment (GlobalWebIndex, 2018). This means it is not as worth it to spend a lot of
26
time thinking about as compared to the health related issues for which self-persuasion has been found to be effective, and with decreased message elaboration, the performance of self-persuasion tends to fall (Loman et al., 2018). When there is sufficient reason to answer the question, it is still likely that the same mechanisms that make the persuasion method advantageous in other settings might apply. Consider for example a consumer looking to buy a car. Most people do not do this on a whim, and spend a lot of time comparing cars, weighing pros and cons or in other words, generating arguments as to why one choice is better than another. In that case, making someone generate their own arguments instead of providing them with the arguments is likely to garner more significant results.Limitations and future research
In the current study, there were some limitations that might have led to the unexpected results. It is forth discussing some of these limitations in order to find possible recommendations for future research. The first limitation comes in relation to the stimuli used within the experiment. In the direct-persuasion condition, a statement was made with the simple argument that the sustainable product is good for the world. Although ecologically valid and understandable for a wide variety of people, it is an argument that most people already know and associate with sustainable products (Ferguson et al., 2017). For this reason, a difference in knowledge would have a smaller chance to affect the processing of the message. If a newer or more complicated argument were presented that most people are not yet aware of, knowledge might be able to make a more significant difference as it would allow only those with high levels of knowledge to process the message effectively. In future research, it could therefore be advantageous to test for different arguments with variance in its’ complexity or novelty.
The second limitation was that the sample used primarily consisted of students from survey exchange Facebook groups or websites. Most of these people are doing their own research, and as such they might be more aware of certain measurements, might react different to stimuli and might be in more of rush to fill out the questionnaire as they are mainly participating in return for participation with
27
their own study. This is an assumption but can not be verified as time spent viewing the stimuli was not measured and no minimum viewing time was implemented into the design of the questionnaire. The occupation or student status was also not measured, so it could not be controlled for within the analysis. When studying types of persuasion in the future, it would be beneficial to either implement a minimum viewing time or measure viewing time. Even then however, it could still not be determined for sure whether participants actually paid sufficient attention to the message for its contents to make a difference. To solve this, eye tracking software could be used but this would have to happen in a lab setting, decreasing the ecological validity.Finally, as mentioned in the discussion, the product chosen might have limited the found effects of self-persuasion. Although we had good reason to choose a personal care product, it is an item most people do not spend too much time weighing arguments against each other about before buying. This could have caused the advantages of self-persuasion as found in other studies to go to waste. In future studies, it could be of use to take a product for which more elaboration is typical, or even to compare such a product to an everyday item as was used in this study.
Unfortunately, this study could not effectively answer the research question as with the manipulation having failed, it is likely self-persuasion was triggered in most cases. The findings do however offer scientific relevance as they make the importance of attention to the message clear and show what kind of product does not attract enough of it to find any effects. As for the societal
relevance, this study’s findings suggest advertisers should stay away from self-persuasion when advertising items that do not elicit message elaboration through a channel like social media where people rarely spend ample time viewing a post to generate arguments. Still, I would not recommend advertisers to avoid self-persuasion as a commercial means in general, as the results may differ for other products. In conclusion, the expectations of this experiment were not met in full, but the circumstances of the findings do invite us to continue exploring this topic. The original question still stands, and the
28
effectiveness of self-persuasion for a wider range of sustainable products as well as the commercial domain at large is still to be determined. Hopefully, future research can go out and fill this gap effectively.29
References
Accenture (2016) The Future of Advertising. Retrieved June 16, 2020 from
https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/accenture/next-gen/pulse-of-media/pdf/accenture-future-of-advertising-pov.pdf
Accenture. (2019). More than Half of Consumers Would Pay More for Sustainable Products Retrieved June 15, 2020, from https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/more-than-half-of-consumers- would-pay-more-for-sustainable-products-designed-to-be-reused-or-recycled-accenture-survey-finds.htm
Al-Menayes, J. J. (2015). Motivations for using social media: An exploratory factor analysis. International Journal of Psychological Studies, 7(1), 43.
Aronson, E. (1999). The power of self-persuasion. American Psychologist, 54(11), 875.
Benveniste, A. (2019). Average Americans Can't Afford to Buy Green. Retrieved June 15, 2020, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-07/it-s-not-cheap-being-a-green-consumer Bernritter, S. F., van Ooijen, I., & Müller, B. C. (2017). Self-persuasion as marketing technique: the role of consumers’ involvement. European Journal of Marketing.
Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance.
Briñol, P., McCaslin, M. J., & Petty, R. E. (2012). Self-generated persuasion: effects of the target and direction of arguments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(5), 925.
Celsi, R. L., & Olson, J. C. (1988). The role of involvement in attention and comprehension processes. Journal of consumer research, 15(2), 210-224.
Dillard, J. P., & Shen, L. (2005). On the nature of reactance and its role in persuasive health communication. Communication Monographs, 72(2), 144-168.
Eagly, A. H. (1974). Comprehensibility of persuasive arguments as a determinant of opinion change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29(6), 758.
30
Ferguson, K. E., Hair, J. F., Vinhas da Silva, R., Oliveira-Brochado, A., & Mollah, M. M. H. (2017). Consumer perceptions of sustainability: an exploratory study. International Journal of Business, Marketing, and Decision Sciences, 10(1), 1-21.Gillespie, E. (2008). Stemming the tide of greenwash: How an ostensibly greener market could pose challenges for environmentally sustainable consumerism. Consumer Policy Review, 18(3), 79.
GlobalWebIndex (2018). Consumers Going Green: Everything You Need to Know. Retrieved June 21, 2020, from https://blog.globalwebindex.com/chart-of-the-week/green-consumerism/
Godin, G., Bélanger-Gravel, A., Vézina-Im, L. A., Amireault, S., & Bilodeau, A. (2012). Question– behaviour effect: A randomised controlled trial of asking intention in the interrogative or declarative form. Psychology & Health, 27(9), 1086-1099.
Greenwald, A. G., & Albert, R. D. (1968). Acceptance and recall of improvised arguments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(1, Pt.1), 31–34.
Hoffman, A. J. (2018). The next phase of business sustainability. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 16(2), 34-39.
International Trade Center. (2019, 4 October). The State of Sustainable Markets 2019: Statistics and Emerging Trends. Retrieved on 22 March 2020 from
http://www.intracen.org/publication/Sustainable-Markets-2019/
Johnson, B. T. (1994). Effects of outcome-relevant involvement and prior information on persuasion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 30(6), 556-579.
Kang, J., Liu, C., & Kim, S. H. (2013). Environmentally sustainable textile and apparel consumption: the role of consumer knowledge, perceived consumer effectiveness and perceived personal relevance. International Journal of consumer studies, 37(4), 442-452.
Kim, H. S., & Damhorst, M. L. (1998). Environmental concern and apparel consumption. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 16(3), 126-133.
31
Kim, H. Y. (2009). Effects of consumer values and past experiences on consumer intention to buy organic personal care products: An application of the theory of planned behavior (Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University).Kumar, B., Manrai, A. K., & Manrai, L. A. (2017). Purchasing behaviour for environmentally sustainable products: A conceptual framework and empirical study. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 34, 1-9.
Loman, J. G., Müller, B. C., Oude Groote Beverborg, A., van Baaren, R. B., & Buijzen, M. (2018). Self-persuasion in media messages: Reducing alcohol consumption among students with open-ended questions. Journal of experimental psychology: applied, 24(1), 81.
MacInnis, D. J., & Jaworski, B. J. (1989). Information processing from advertisements: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of marketing, 53(4), 1-23.
Maclnnis, D. J., Moorman, C., & Jaworski, B. J. (1991). Enhancing and measuring consumers’ motivation, opportunity, and ability to process brand information from ads. Journal of marketing, 55(4), 32-53.
Maio, G. R., & Thomas, G. (2007). The epistemic-teleologic model of deliberate self-persuasion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(1), 46-67.
Marchand, A., & Walker, S. (2008). Product development and responsible consumption: designing alternatives for sustainable lifestyles. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16(11), 1163-1169.
McEachern, M. G., & Warnaby, G. (2008). Exploring the relationship between consumer knowledge and purchase behaviour of value‐based labels. International Journal of Consumer
Müller, B. C., van Baaren, R. B., Ritter, S. M., Woud, M. L., Bergmann, H., Harakeh, Z., ... & Dijksterhuis, A. (2009). Tell me why… The influence of self-involvement on short term smoking behaviour. Addictive Behaviors, 34(5), 427-431.
32
Mussweiler, T., & Neumann, R. (2000). Sources of mental contamination: Comparing the effects of self-generated versus externally provided primes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36(2), 194-206.Neergaard, P.; Andersen, M.; Bech, L. Environmental-Friendly Textiles; Copenhagen Business School: Miljo styrelsen, Denmark, 2002.
Nguyen, T. T. H., Yang, Z., Nguyen, N., Johnson, L. W., & Cao, T. K. (2019). Greenwash and Green Purchase Intention: The Mediating Role of Green Skepticism. Sustainability, 11(9), 2653.
NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business. (2019). Research on IRI Purchasing Data (2013 -2018). Retrieved from https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/about/departments-centers- initiatives/centers-of-research/center-sustainable-business/research/internal-research/sustainable-share-index
Obermiller, C., Spangenberg, E., & MacLachlan, D. L. (2005). Ad skepticism: The consequences of disbelief. Journal of advertising, 34(3), 7-17.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1977). Forewarning, cognitive responding, and resistance to persuasion. Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 35(9), 645.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1979). Issue involvement can increase or decrease persuasion by enhancing message-relevant cognitive responses. Journal of personality and social psychology, 37(10), 1915.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In Communication and persuasion (pp. 1-24). Springer, New York, NY.
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Goldman, R. (1981). Personal involvement as a determinant of argument-based persuasion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 41(5), 847.
Polonsky, M. J., Grau, S. L., & Garma, R. (2010). The new greenwash? Potential marketing problems with carbon offsets. International journal of business studies, 18(1), 49-54.
33
Schuhwerk, M., and R. Lefkokk-Hagius (1995), “Green or Not- Green? Does Type of AppealStatista (2020). Global social media ranking 2019. Retrieved June 20, 2020, from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/ Ulusoy, E., & Barretta, P. G. (2016). How green are you, really? Consumers’ skepticism toward brands with green claims. Journal of Global Responsibility.
Van Reijmersdal, E. A., Fransen, M. L., van Noort, G., Opree, S. J., Vandeberg, L., Reusch, S., ... & Boerman, S. C. (2016). Effects of disclosing sponsored content in blogs: How the use of resistance strategies mediates effects on persuasion. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(12), 1458-1474.
Wellins, R., & McGinnies, E. (1977). Counterarguing and selective exposure to persuasion. The Journal of Social Psychology, 103(1), 115-127.
Williams, P., Block, L. G., & Fitzsimons, G. J. (2006). Simply asking questions about health behaviors increases both healthy and unhealthy behaviors. Social Influence, 1(2), 117-127.
Wilson, T. D., & Brekke, N. (1994). Mental contamination and mental correction: unwanted influences on judgments and evaluations. Psychological bulletin, 116(1), 117.
34
Appendix Appendix 1: Survey
1. Informed consent form 2. Cover story
3. Stimuli (Condition split)
4. If Eco Care Bodywash was available, I would buy it. (Purchase intention) 5. It is likely that I will purchase Eco Care Bodywash. (Purchase intention) 6. I plan to buy Eco Care Bodywash. (Purchase intention)
7. The post tried to make decision for me. (Perceived persuasive intent) 8. The post tried to manipulate me. (Perceived persuasive intent)
9. The post threatened my freedom to choose. (Perceived persuasive intent) 10. The post tried to pressure me. (Perceived persuasive intent)
11. I am quite familiar with sustainable personal care products. (Knowledge) 12. I am quite familiar with sustainable personal care products. (Knowledge) 13. I have learned a lot about sustainable personal care products. (Knowledge) 14. I am concerned about the environment. (Involvement)
15. The condition of the environment affects my life. (Involvement)
16. I am willing to make sacrifices to protect the environment. (Involvement)
17. Please rephrase the caption of the post as accurately as possible. (Manipulation check) 18. What form was the text on the post written in? (Manipulation check)
19. What is your age? (Demographics) 20. What is your gender? (Demographics)
21. What do you think the intention of this study is? (Cover story check) 22. Debriefing
35
Appendix 2: Stimuli
