Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Communication

Our study examined two prominent factors that were thought to counteract the efficacy of body positive images on young women. First, we sought to understand the degree to which the nature of the source (user-generated content or corporate sponsored) of body positive images affected how viewers react to body positive content on Instagram. Second, natural to the social media environment, we examined the degree to which the valence of user generated comments related to the body positive movement can influence how viewers responded to body positive images on Instagram. Four hundred and five adult women were recruited using Cloud Research powered by Turkprime. The results indicate that although participants recognized the commercial intent of corporate sponsored posts, this recognition of commercial persuasion did not negatively affect how participants evaluated the posts or the body positivity movement. Further, the valence of health-related comments (positive or negative) did not substantively influence how participants reacted to the body positive posts on Instagram. The results have implications for the persuasion knowledge model and provide insight for emerging research that seeks to understand the effects of body positive imagery on social media.

Committee: David DeAndrea Dr. (Advisor); Teresa Lynch Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2009, ED Policy and Leadership

Educational Psychology research has noted the similarities between conceptual change and persuasion. Though some researchers (e.g. Murphy & Alexander, 2004) have cut across literatures to make the case for serious scholarly dialogue on persuasion in classrooms, many facets of persuasion in the classroom remain to be explored. The present investigation (N = 633) explores the link between the persuasive characteristics of teachers (i.e. teacher affinity and teacher credibility) and student gains in knowledge and valuing of learning about HIV and pregnancy prevention across classrooms. Results marshaled evidence for the role of persuasive characteristics in producing conceptual change in students. Above and beyond individual background characteristics, teacher credibility was positively related to increases in knowledge across classrooms, whereas teacher affinity was positively related to increases valuing of learning across classrooms. Future directions and implications for practice are discussed.

Committee: Eric Anderman (Advisor); Ann O'Connell (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Psychology; Health Education; Psychology; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Psychology

One prominent way in which persuasive messages can differ is whether they focus on a recipient's emotions regarding some issue versus the recipient's beliefs about the issue. The current research investigated the possibility that the mere perception that one's attitudes are based on affect (versus cognition) can influence interest in an affect-laden or cognition-focused message as well as persuasion to these messages. Past research has focused on whether one's attitude is actually dominated by affect or by cognition, whereas the present research examines the utility of people's subjective assessments of whether their evaluations are affect- or cognition-driven (i.e. meta-bases) as separate from whether people's attitudes are actually affect- or cognition-based (i.e. structural bases). Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that meta-bases uniquely predict interest in affective versus cognitive information above and beyond structural bases and other related variables (e.g., need for cognition and need for affect). In addition, Study 3 shows that meta-bases account for unique variance in attitude change as a function of whether the appeal elicits emotions or generates thoughts about attributes. Finally, Study 4 shows that meta-bases are predictive of information interest when people are relatively deliberative in their responses whereas structural bases predict information interest when people are relatively spontaneous in their responses. Future directions for research on meta-bases, as well as general implications of the meta-structural distinction, are discussed.

Committee: Richard Petty (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology, Social

PHD, Kent State University, 2009, College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Ambassador Crawford / Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Recent trends such as ad skipping have led to the adoption of alternative promotion strategies in reaching target audiences. Brand placement (BP), the inclusion of brands into entertainment with an attempt to persuade, is an increasingly common tactic used by marketers. Academic research has had a hard time keeping up with practice and has primarily focused on cognitive effects, viewing BP as another form of advertising. A few empirical studies have considered alternative theories for explaining BP effects in light of its unique entertainment setting. These studies show complementary nonconscious effects such as implicit memory and implicit attitude and find that explicit measures do not mediate effects on implicit measures, but lead to negative attitude effects. To date, however, no study has looked at how brand associations are learned from BP. To fill this gap, this dissertation adopted the implicit learning framework from cognitive psychology. Implicit learning suggests that even complex information can be learned 1) without awareness of what is learned, 2) without intention to learn, and 3) as a byproduct of some explicit learning. A total of 725 subjects were recruited to participate in three separate experiments conducted to investigate the effect of awareness on implicit learning and explicit learning in three different settings: across marketing communications, within BP, and across BP-advertising sequences. Measures assessed viewer learning of four of the nine brands embedded in the film I, Robot after viewing either the entire film or an edited clip. Learning was also used to explain conventional measures such as brand memory and brand attitude. Key findings show that 1) brand associations are learned differently in the BP and advertising contexts, 2) prominence may actually deter implicit learning within BP, and 3) there are interactive effects when BP and advertising are used together. Persuasion knowledge was found to be a useful covariate when looking (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Y. Hu (Committee Co-Chair); Robert Jewell (Committee Co-Chair); Jennifer Wiggins Johnson (Committee Member); Murali Shanker (Committee Member) Subjects: Marketing