CHAPTER 5
Attitudes Based on High Effort
CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter examines how consumers’ affective involvements are formed and changed when
their motivation, ability, and opportunity to engage in a behavior, make a decision, or process
a message are high. In these instances, consumers tend to expend a lot of effort informing
their attitudes. An attitude is a relatively global and enduring evaluation about an offering,
issue, activity, person, or event. Attitudes can be described in terms of their favorability,
accessibility, confidence, persistence, and resistance. When motivated ability and opportunity
(MAO) is high, consumers devote considerable effort to processing a message. The thoughts
and feelings that they have in response to this situation can affect their attitudes, through
either a cognitive or an affective route to persuasion.
From a cognitive perspective, attitudes can be based on cognitive responses, which are
defined as thoughts that individuals have in response to a stimulus. Three major types of
cognitive responses are counterarguments, support arguments, and source derogations.
Many counterarguments and source derogations would suggest that consumers’ attitudes
toward an offering are negative.
A second cognitively based perspective on attitudes is the expectancy-value approach. The
Theory of Reasoned Action (TORA), an extension of this model, is designed to predict not
only attitudes but also behavioral intentions. This model predicts that intentions are affected
by consumers’ attitudes toward the act and normative factors. The model also identifies how
attitudes and intentions can be influenced by four major strategies: (1) change beliefs (bi), (2)
change evaluations (ei), (3) add new beliefs (bi x ei), and (4) target normative beliefs (NB).
Also, under elaborative processing, messages can be effective if they (1) have a credible
source, (2) have a strong argument, (3) present positive and negative information (under
certain circumstances), or (4) involve direct comparisons (if not the market leader).
Attitudes are also formed from feelings or emotions such as joy and fear. In essence,
consumers can experience emotions either when they are affectively involved with a
communication or when the message involves an emotional appeal. In either case, the
consumer holistically processes the communication, and the feelings that result (either
positive or negative) can determine attitudes.
When attitudes are affectively based, sources that are likable or attractive can have a positive
impact on affective attitude change. Emotional appeals can affect elaborative processing if
they are relevant to the offering (the match-up hypothesis). Fear appeals are a specific type of
emotion-eliciting message. A consumer’s attitude toward the ad (Aad) can play a role in the
attitude change process if the ad is informative or associated with positive feelings. The Aad
can then rub off on brand beliefs and attitudes.
Finally, attitudes will better predict a consumer’s behavior when (1) involvement is high, (2)
knowledge is high, (3) consumers analyze their brand preferences, (4) attitudes are
accessible, (5) attitudes are held with confidence, (6) they are specific, (7) the time between
exposure to product advertising and product trial is short, (8) there are no situational factors
present, (9) normative factors are not in operation, and (10) we are dealing with certain
personality types.