NEGATIVE INFORMATION PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS.docx

1、NEGATIVE INFORMATION PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS9 Marc G. Weinberger, Chris T. Allen, William R. Dillon (1981), NEGATIVE INFORMATION: PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS, in Advances in Consumer Research Volume 08, eds. Kent B. Monroe, Ann Abor : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 3

2、98-404. Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, 1981 Pages 398-404NEGATIVE INFORMATION: PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONSMarc G. Weinberger, University of Massachusetts/AmherstChris T. Allen, University of Massachusetts/Amherst William R. Dillon, University of Massachusetts/AmherstABSTRACT - The

3、topic of negative information encompasses a variety of research areas which heretofore have been considered as distinct and separate from one another. The literature from each of these unique research perspectives is reviewed here and then related to the broader scope of negative information effects

4、. Finally, possible directions for negative information research are suggested.INTRODUCTIONThough consumer researchers have had a long tradition of interest in the impact of information on consumer decision-making, relatively little effort has been devoted to examining the effect of negative consume

5、r information. This absence of concentrated study prevails despite dramatic growth in the amount of negative information in the marketplace. Todays manager is confronted with a hostile and often uncontrollable external information environment. Negative information offered for public consumption can

6、be traced to consumer and environmental groups, to regulatory agencies, and even to competitors. In other instances the unfavorable information takes the form of untraceable rumor. The strength and longevity of effects of these unfavorable cues on an individuals perceptions, attitudes, and behavior

7、are of obvious potential interest and importance to both the marketing academic and practitioner. Moreover, the impact of negative information in the marketplace would seem salient to those who study the relationships among major societal institutions because there is potentially a cumulative effect

8、 of a profusion of negative information cues on consumers general attitudes towards business practices and institutions.Definitionally negative information about people, products, issues or companies represents the presentation of input which somehow denigrates the object of the message. Issues such

9、 as person perception, personnel evaluation, fear appeals, rumor, product recall, counter advertising, comparison advertising, product recall reports, corrective advertising, affirmative disclosure, and self-denigrating product information all involve some aspect of negative information that may be

10、confronted, subsequently placed in short or long-term memory, and potentially withdrawn to be used in a current or future decision. In all instances an attempt is made to either discourage some behavior or attitude and focus on establishing a new attitude or behavior.To date research about negative

11、information has been scattered under diverse areas in psychology, sociology and marketing. As a result micro research traditions related to negative information issues have developed within each discipline with little recognition that they relate to a common theme. The major intent of this paper is

12、to first review some of the major paradigms and conceptual foundations which have been applied to the study of negative information. Secondly. this paper will examine empirical findings from a variety of disciplines which relate to negative information effects. Finally, some suggested directions for

13、 future research in this area will be outlined. In general, what is labeled here as negative information is not novel but the vision of the related component issues under a common rubric is new.EXPLAINING THE EFFECT OF NEGATIVE INFORMATIONDifferent experimental paradigms and theoretical constructs h

14、ave emerged in generating and testing specific hypotheses concerning negative information. The simplest and most widely used research paradigm has been impression formation. In its most primitive cause and effect form a stimulus triggers some belief, attitude or action in a subject population. The i

15、mpact of mediational factors such as anxiety, susceptibility to social influence, receptivity and so on are not of primary concern. In most impression formation studies unfavorable adjective descriptions or scenarios have been the stimuli employed with the target object being a known and/or unknown

16、individual or group. Variations in the amount and intensity of negative and positive stimuli have been gauged using simple paper and pencil measures of liking, behavioral intention and so on. The advantage of this approach to studying negative information has bean the ability to retain very tight in

17、ternal control over the experimental setting.A more complex extension of impression formation is attribution theory where the individual is viewed as a being who perceives a situation, examines it for key elements of information, and subsequently makes an inference about a stimulus object (Kelley 19

18、73). To date attribution theory has served as an explanation for negative informational effects rather than as an empirical paradigm. Using an attributional framework Kanouse and Hanson (1971) suggest that negative information has the strong impact that it does because it stands out more than positi

19、ve information and in Kelleys terminology would therefore have more distinctiveness. This apparently results from the fact that there are more positive cues in the individuals social environment. As a result, negative cues attract more attention and are therefore more heavily attributable to the sti

20、mulus object. This underestimation of important contextual factors is an attributional phenomenon observed in both a laboratory setting (Jones and Nisbett 1971) and at the societal level (Lazer 1980).A more mediational view of negative information effects might be taken with both assimilation-contra

21、st theory or threat-compliance models. Both are conceptual approaches that help explain the situational effects of an incoming stimuli in relationship to some sec of individual predispositions. Assimilation - contrast theory (Sherif, Sherif and Nebergall 1965) posits that prior experience or attitud

22、e of the receiver and its relative position to that advocated in the message will determine whether it is drawn closer into the receivers sphere (assimilated) or expelled further outside the receivers position (contrasted). Thus, negative information consistent with the receivers beliefs would be as

23、similated and that which is incompatible would be contrasted and rejected with subsequent low compliance. Since individuals bring to a setting some set of predispositions which affect their perceptions, the ability to assess these relevant predispositions might help predict the impact of negative in

24、formation.In a similar mediational vein McGuire (1968) developed a threat - compliance model where the impact of a message on opinion change is a function of ones predisposition to receive a message (receptivity) and yielding. Without considering receptivity one might expect that greater anxiety aro

25、usal would lead to greater yielding to an influence attempt. When receptivity is factored in as a potential mediator, a negative relationship between anxiety and persuasion is expected. Receptivity adds a non-monotonic dimension to McGuires threat - compliance analysis and emphasizes the need to con

26、sider predispositional factors like receptivity. Since much of the negative information in the consumer context represents a threat of varying magnitude, this conceptual approach might be attractive in dealing with the situational complexities of many negative information circumstances.EMPIRICAL RES

27、EARCHNegative information has been investigated most often using impression formation as its basic paradigm focusing on the subareas of person perception and personnel decisions.Person PerceptionPsychologists have examined the impact of negative and positive information in the context of forming inf

28、erences or impressions about people. For example, Goodman (1950) found that trait words such as cold were more powerful in influencing impressions than positive trait words such as warm. Similarly, Osgood. Succi and Tannenbaum (1957) found that, contrary to their proposed congruity principle, equall

29、y polarized positive and negative information did not have a balancing effect on impression formation; rather, in every instance of a reported error the direction of influence favored the negative information.In 1965 Anderson found that negative adjectives seem more powerful than positive adjective

30、sets in affecting overall evaluations. Similarly, Feldman (1966) and Richey, McClelland and Shinkunas (1967) found that the weight given negative adjectives exceeded weight given to positive adjectives when several must be combined into one overall evaluation.Others have attempted to identify the si

31、tuational variables that affect person perception. The strong impact of negative information occurred when the target person was a female rather than a male (Richey and Dryer 1970), and when s variety of different personality variables were tested (Briscoe, Woodyard and Shaw 1967). In an examination

32、 of situational message variables Cusumano and Richey (1970) manipulated order and intensity factors and Richey, Koenigs, Richey, and Fortin (1975) varied amounts of negative and positive information. In both studies, negative information was more salient than would be predicted using a simple avera

33、ging theory. In the latter study, one piece of negative information effectively neutralized five positive behaviors. The generalizability of negative information effects receives support in a cross-cultural study conducted in Denmark where Bernadette Gray-Little (1978) found that Danes, like Americans, evince a disproportionate neg