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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Thought Confidence: Consumer Emotions and the Confidence Premise Hypothesis
Author(s)
Hsuan-Yi Chou
Full-Text PDF
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2185/2016.05.004
Affiliation(s)
Hsuan-Yi Chou, associate professor, Institute of Marketing Communication, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.
ABSTRACT
Thought confidence, a subjective perception of metacognition, and the accompanying self-validated effects that occur when thought confidence is induced after exposure to persuasive messages have recently received increasing attention from scholars. This construct/mechanism has received little exploration in the past, while there remain important research gaps. One question is whether thought confidence can play different roles when induced at different times; another is whether more variables can be identified which effectively induce confidence in existing or subsequent thoughts. The current paper examines a possible antecedent of thought confidence (i.e., consumer emotions) and explores the effects of thought confidence induced in consumers before they are exposed to advertisements. The author posited the confidence premise hypothesis, which holds that higher consumer confidence is a prerequisite for the significantly positive effects of argument strength in advertisements. Eighty-one undergraduates participated in a 2 (emotions: good moods vs. neutral moods) × 2 (argument strength: strong arguments vs. weak arguments) between-subjects experiment. Experimental results indicate that consumers’ emotions positively affect their confidence in thoughts generated later. There is an anticipated pattern of interaction between emotions and argument strength in affecting advertising effectiveness, which supports the confidence premise hypothesis. The implications of these and other findings are discussed.
KEYWORDS
thought confidence, metacognition, self-validated hypothesis, consumer emotions, confidence premise hypothesis, argument strength
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