Briana Anderson - Cornell University

CHAPTER FOUR
METHOD
This study used a 2 X 2 X 2 experimental design with three conditions:
attractiveness of endorser, company type (cosmetics vs. pharmaceutical), and the
order/combination of endorser type and company type. The outcome variables are
endorser credibility and organizational credibility. A total of 137 students from three
communication classes participated in the study, completing a three-part questionnaire
that included two CSR advertisements. The first part of the questionnaire included
questions related to the participants’ perceptions of corporate credibility based on
Grunig and Hon’s (1999) “Guidelines for Measuring Relationships in Public
Relations”. The second section of the questionnaire required the participants to view
the CSR ad again and rate the credibility of the endorser based on Ohanian’s (1990)
endorser credibility scale. In the final section of the questionnaire, participants
answered questions related to their cognitive involvement with breast cancer research.
Data from this section of the questionnaire serve to measure the level of involvement
of participants related to the social responsibility issue/ topic, i.e. breast cancer
research, which the companies are involved in.
Stimulus Materials
The stimulus materials included two fictitious company advertisements. The
focus was on testing the prototype of a CSR message to lessen the chance of
participants being influenced by pre-existing attitudes toward a real company;
therefore, fictitious companies were created to be the organizations in the ads. Two
different companies were used (to control for company type influencing perceptions of
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