Index of Paper Presentations for the Parallel Sessions - Academy of ...

QuickTime and adecompressorare needed to see this picture.Mediation Analyses. To examine H5, further mediation analysis was performed. Analysis showedthat the interaction effect between message concreteness and processing instructions wassignificant on processing fluency (β = .30; t (94) = 3.06, p < .01). The effect of processing fluencyon flow was significant (β = .28; t (94) = 1.97, p < .05). The interaction effect was significant onattitude toward the webpage (β = .20; t (92) = 2.85, p < .01). Finally, when processing fluencyand the flow were entered as covariates in the third equation, the interaction effect betweenmessage concreteness and processing instructions and the effect of processing fluency on attitudetoward the webpage became non-significant (p > .13), whereas the effect of flow remainedsignificant (p < .001). This indicated that the interaction effect between message concreteness andprocessing instructions on attitude toward the webpage was fully mediated by process fluencyand flow. Thus, H5 was supported. As the interaction effect was not significant on cigarette trialintention, H6 was not supported.GENERAL DISCUSSIONTheoretical and Managerial ImplicationsNot surprisingly, message concreteness has been studied extensively in marketingcommunications (Phillips and McQuarrie 2002). The superiority of concrete messages as apersuasive message strategy relative to abstract messages is well-established (e.g., Block andKeller 1995, 1997; Igartua, Cheng, and Lopes 2003). These findings have provided interestinginsights into designing healthcare messages, little is known regarding the persuasive impacts ofmessage concreteness in conjunction with other potential communication tactics particularlyimportant to persuasive healthful communication, such as primed temporal orientation (Bergadaa1990). Close this theoretical gap, study 1 showed that congruency between message concretenessand temporal orientation priming enhanced message effectiveness. This research identifies theunique opportunity of combining temporal orientation and message concreteness in deliveringhealthcare messages.More generally, this research offer insights into the pathways of congruency effects betweenmessage concreteness and priming. Prior research suggests that processing fluency mediatescongruency effects (Petrova and Cialdini 2005; Thompson and Hamilton 2006). Extending priorresearch, this research uncovered that the processing mechanism underlying the congruencyeffect varies depending on communication goals, attitude or behavioral intention change. Inparticular, processing fluency alone explains the congruency effects on behavioral intention,whereas processing fluency and flow jointly accounts for the congruency effects on attitude. Bydeveloping a more precise processing model for the congruency effects, this research sheds lightson the theoretical richness and complexity of the congruency effects.Interesting insights and implications can be drawn from this research to guide healthcaremarketers. First, there is a tendency in advertising to combine message strategies with nonmessagestrategy (e.g., sensory cues that elicit high-imagery or prime short-term orientation). Byexamining the match or mismatch of temporal orientation priming (or imagery processing