Moderating Effects of Need for Cognition on Responses to Positively versus Negatively Framed Advertising Messages

A 2 × 2 × 2 experimental study was conducted to investigate the moderating effect of consumer individual differences in need for cognition (NFC) and source credibility on the processing of framed advertising messages. The authors used a student sample (n = 160) and three dependent variables: product attractiveness, willingness to purchase, and perceived performance. Results indicate NFC influenced the strength of framed messages and source credibility effects in consumer responses to ad messages. Specifically, the message framing effect was more salient for low- NFC subjects than high- NFC subjects. Further, low- NFC subjects were influenced more by the negatively framed messages than by the positively framed messages. Although the hypothesized source credibility main effect did not materialize, low- NFC subjects responded the least favorably to messages presented by non-expert sources. Other findings and implications are discussed.