Page 53 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

46 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

arguments that were varied between participants to be either weak or
strong. Wheeler and colleagues found that individuals engaged in greater
elaboration of the remaining message content when the initial paragraph
matched participants’ self-schemas. That is, the difference between weak
and strong arguments was greater when the early message content matched
participants’ self-schemas. This finding suggested that a match between
self-schema and the initial information presented in a message affected
subsequent message elaboration. Wheeler and colleagues replicated these
findings in a second experiment with the self-schema of need for cognition
(i.e., individuals’ propensity to enjoy and engage in thinking; Cacioppo &
Petty, 1982). Individuals were more likely to process subsequent informa-
tion when a message appealed to their enjoyment of deliberate thinking or
quick decision-making. In the work by Wheeler and colleagues, elabora-
tion was not constrained to be high or low. In accordance with the multi-
ple roles notion, though, when elaboration is constrained to be low,
perspective matches to self-schemas could serve as simple positive cues,
and when elaboration is constrained to be high, such matches could bias
information processing.

Regulatory Focus and Gains versus Losses

Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) suggests that two distinct types
of goals drive humans: promotion and prevention. Promotion goals refer
to the desire to attain positive outcomes, whereas prevention-focused
goals refer to a desire to avoid negative outcomes. For example, an indi-
vidual with a promotion goal might approach a situation (e.g., studying)
with a focus on achievement (e.g., I want to earn an A), and an individual
with a prevention-focused goal might approach the same situation with a
focus on avoiding a loss (e.g., I do not want to earn a B).
Cesario, Grant, and Higgins (2004) examined the implications for per-
suasion of matching message content to whether a recipient was promo-
tion versus prevention focused. To test their hypothesis, in one experiment,
the authors measured participants’ chronic tendencies to be promotion
versus prevention focused in their goal pursuits. Participants were then
exposed to a new message about the benefits of an after-school program
that was framed in a manner to appeal to either promotion or prevention
focused individuals. Specifically, given that promotion goals related to ad-
vancement and obtainment, one set of messages was framed to emphasize
the gains from the program (“This program . . . will advance children’s
education and support more children to succeed”), whereas another was
focused on the negatives that would be avoided (“This program will . . .