CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Overview
This study was managed by an experimental design to examine whether or not Subjective knowledge influences the consumers’ evaluation. Besides, how the subjective knowledge impacts the consumers’ confidence in assessing the product. To examine these hypotheses, we conducted the questionnaire into three parts. First, Bias reminder to remind the participants to regard to the bias in the target product. Secondly, Subjective knowledge to manipulate the participants to get the high subjective knowledge with low objective knowledge or low subjective knowledge with high objective knowledge, after this part the participant will be conducted to adjust their confident level toward the target product. Lastly, Endorse to examine participants’ attitude toward the endorser and how was the effect on consumers’ evaluation.
In the experiment, we collected the data randomly by sharing the link of the online survey platform to the participants. There will be eight different questionnaires in our experiment to examine the different variables. The participant will be asked to select the questionnaire following on their birthday. We expected to collect the 15 participants for each group to do our analysis.
Main Experiment
Participants and Design. Since our experiment designed to examine Thai people, all of our data will be collected by the online platform. The Jotform.com website was used to create our online questionnaires.
We expected to have at least 180 Thai males and females to participant in this experiment. There were eight different questionnaires and participants were asked to do for each questionnaire by randomly using participants’ birthday.
For each questionnaire, we designed each questionnaire by following to the cells in a 2 (Bias Reminder: bias reminder or without bias reminder) x 2 (Subjective knowledge: high or low) x 2 (Endorser: attractive or average). Our questionnaires’ design is presented in Table 1.
Table 1.
Experimental Design
Experimental Procedure. In our experiment, after the participant selected the questionnaire according to their birthday, the first page of the questionnaire will be the survey introduction explained that our study researched on consumers’ cognitive
capability and reading comprehension on the general media information. Also, there was the notification that the participants cannot turn back to the previous page so the
participants should read the articles and do the questions on each page carefully.
The next page was Bias reminder advertisement. Half participants discovered the Bias reminder advertisement while the other participants discovered the advertisement
Variables Level
Bias Reminder Have Without
Subjective knowledge High Low
Endorser Attractive Average
without Bias reminder. After this page, there were five questions regarding the product quality, celebrity endorsement and purchase intention to evaluate the target product. In this experimentation, we would like to examine that how the biases affect participants’
evaluation. In the Bias reminder advertisement, there were some articles about the bias (e.g., costing for endorser and packaging) to remind the participants. Participants encountered with Bias reminder advertisement were recalled about the biases in these articles, and they would have more attention on the product while the other would not.
After Bias reminder’s experiment stage, the participants would read the article about the daily product. The half of participants got the article related to our knowledge test on the next page to serve as high objective knowledge. After the knowledge test, there was a message informed participants that they got only two correct answers from 9 questions for manipulating our participants to have a low subjective knowledge. On the other hand, the reminding participants would get the article unrelated to following knowledge test to serve as low objective knowledge and got the message reported that they got seven correct answers from 9 questions for controlling our participants to get a high subjective knowledge. For this process, we would like to manipulate the half
participants to serve as a high objective knowledge with a low subjective knowledge and the others serve as a low objective knowledge with high subjective knowledge.
Then, there was the advertisement to lead the participants to have a high involvement with our target product, after that the endorser for the target product’s advertisement will be introduced. The half of participants encountered with attractive endorser while the others encountered with the average endorser. Finally, participants will be asked to answer the questions about the target product. In this last experiment
questionnaire, we would like to examine participants’ evaluation of our product target with different endorser and different attitude on subjective knowledge and objective knowledge.
Independent Variables
Endorser. In our experiment, there were two endorsers in the target
advertisement, first endorse is a famous actress in Thailand Toey - Jarinporn and the second endorse is an unknown college student. Both of these two endorses will appear in the same kind of picture with the target product and some description sentence to
promote the target product.
Involvement. To serve as the high involvement, the article in the target
advertisement that introduced the brand of target product had the plan to expand its market to South East Asian, and it selected Thailand to be the first market to sell this product in next two weeks.
Bias Reminder. There were two kinds of target advertisement in this part of our
experiment. The first one was the advertisement of PP supermarket with the description that the products in this store have a low price because the prices are not included the celebrity endorsement cost or the packaging cost to remind the participants to regard to these biases. The second advertisement was also the advertisement for PP supermarket, but there was not any bias reminder on the advertisement.
Subjective knowledge. Half of the participants will be manipulated to have high
subjective knowledge but low objective knowledge, they will be asked to read the daily article that does not relate to the nine questions on the next page. On the other hand, the other participants will be controlled to have low subjective knowledge but high objective
knowledge, they will be encountered in the daily articles that related to the nine questions on the next page.
Dependent Variable
Attitude. The questions regard to the attitude toward the target product were asked after all the participants encountered the target advertisement. Five 7-scale items from 1 (very poor quality/ very bad/ very negative / dislike very much/ low purchase intention) to 7 (very good quality/ very good/ very positive/ like very much/ high purchase intention) were used to measure participants’ attitude toward the target. The average of these five items served as the index to indicate the participants’ rating on attitude (Cronbach’s Alpha = .91).
Confidence. Participants’ confident levels were assessed by using three 7-scale items from 1 (very unconfident/ very uncertain/ very unsure) to 7 (very confident/ very certain/ very sure). The coefficient of Cronbach’s Alpha = .92 showed high consistency.
These three items were average to serve as the index of participants’ rating on confidence.
Involvement. Three 7-scales questions from 1 ( not involved at all/ not very serious/ very inattentive) to 7 (highly involved/ very serious/ very attentive) were applied to check participants’ involvement toward the target. The rating on there three questions were highly consistency ( Cronbach’s Alpha = .93). Thus, the average of these three questions served as the index to indicate the participants’ rating on involvement.
Endorser. Attitude toward the endorse was measured by two 7-scales items from 1 (very negative/ dislike very much) to 7 ( very positive/ like very much). The average of
these two items served as the index to indicate participants’ rating on attitude toward this celebrity (Cronbach’s Alpha = .85).
Argument Quality. Participants’ perception about the product was assessed by
using two 7-scales items from 1 (very useless/ not persuasive) to 7 (very useful/ very persuasive). The coefficient of Cronbach’s Alpha = .87 showed high consistency. These two items were average to serve as the index of participants’ rating on argument quality.
CHAPTER 5 RESULTS
Manipulation Checks
Endorer 6.379 1 6.379 5.688 .018
Bias_reminder*
Subjective_knowledge*
Endorser
4.393 1 4.393 3.917 .050
Error 178.308 159 1.121
Endorer 6.243 1 6.243 4.103 .044
Bias_reminder*
Endorser
8.398 1 8.398 5.519 .020
Error 241.941 159 1.522
Endorser. The manipulation check on endorser attractiveness showed only the significant main effect of Endorser, while the other effects were not significant, as shown in Table 4. Participants perceived the celebrity endorser in the target
Endorer 27.085 1 27.085 29.835 .000
Error 144.341 159 .908
13.151 1 13.151 7.313 .008
Bias_reminder*
Subjective_knowledge
*
Endorser
6.034 1 10.851 6.034 .015
Error 285.921 159 1.798
Subjective_knowledge 22.555 1 22.555 5.831 .017
Error 615.022 159 3.868
Dependent measure
Attitude. The result of ANOVA displayed that there was a very significant main effect of Endorser and a partially significant main effect of Bias Reminder, as
Endorser 11.586 1 11.586 13.786 .000
Error 133.797 159 .841
in the simple main effect test), consistent with Hypothesis 2 in that the correction on attractive endorser was less likely to occur in the condition of high subjective
knowledge.
Figure 1. Mean Ratings of Target Attitude (Low subjective knowledge)
Figure 2. Mean Ratings of Target Attitude (High subjective knowledge)
Table 2.
Syntax Output of simple main effect test
CHAPTER 6 GENERAL DISCUSSION
Conclusion
This current study has illustrated that subjective knowledge can be the primary effect on consumers’ evaluation of the product. The result of our
experiment presented participants with low subjective knowledge; the attractive endorser does not have much effect on their evaluation. On the other hand,
participants with high subjective knowledge, the attractive endorse influences their evaluation.
Even though the participants in the condition of high objective knowledge answered more questions correctly than in the condition of low objective
knowledge (M =5.49 vs. 4.74), the participants high in objective knowledge
answered .75 correct answer (less than one correct answer) on average more than the participants low in objective knowledge. The difference between the two conditions was not pretty huge. Such a significant but not huge difference might support the manipulation of subjective knowledge immediately after the knowledge test.
That is, it was more likely for the participants high in objective knowledge with the average correct answer of 5.49 to believe that they only made two correct answers. It would have been even more unlikely for the participants high in
objective knowledge making 8 or 9 correct answers to believe that they only made two correct answers shown on the page of subjective knowledge manipulation. In
Additionally, the questionnaires in this experiment were designed by based on Taiwanese experiment pattern. However, we collected the data and
experimented with Thai people. Hence, this study presented that this pattern of questionnaires is practicable with Thai people.
Limitations and Future Research
There are multiple effects have the influence on consumers’ evaluation and subjective knowledge is one of the main effects on evaluation. When we started to experiment and designed our questionnaires, we also expected that objective knowledge and subjective knowledge could have any effect on consumers’
confidence and this confidence could play an important role on consumers’
judgment toward that product. However, our results did not definitely verify of this expectation. Thus, we suggest that after manipulating participants’ objective
knowledge and subjective knowledge, we should immediately exanimate
participants’ confidence level and check participants’ subjective knowledge before the target advertisement was presented.
Lastly, this study we collected the data by the online survey in Thailand, and Thai people do not get used to this kind of online questionnaire. Perchance there were some participants did not pay more attention to our questionnaire.
Therefore, we suggest collecting the data by paper collection may be more suitable for this experiment.
REFERENCE
Alba, J., & Hutchinson, J. (1987). Dimensions of consumer expertise. Journal of Consumer Research, 13(4), 411. doi: 10.1086/209080
Alba, J., & Hutchinson, J. (2000). Knowledge calibration: What consumers know and what they think they know. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(2), 123-156. doi:
10.1086/314317
Bearden, W., Hardesty, D., & Rose, R. (2001). Consumer self-confidence: Refinements in conceptualization and measurement. Journal of Consumer Research, 28(1), 121-134. doi: 10.1086/321951
Bless, H., & Schwarz, N. (2010). Mental construal and the emergence of assimilation and contrast effects: The inclusion/exclusion model. Experimental Social
Psychology, 42, 319-373.
Briñol, P., & Petty, R. (2009). Persuasion: Insights from the self-validation hypothesis. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 69-118.
Brucks, M. (1985). The effects of product class knowledge on information search behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 12(1), 1. doi: 10.1086/209031
Cacioppo, J., & Petty, R. (1984). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. NA - Advances in Consumer Research, Eds. Thomas C. Kinnear, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, 11, 673-675.
Chien, Y., Wegener, D., Petty, R., & Hsiao, C. (2014). The flexible correction model:
Bias correction guided by naïve theories of bias. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8(6), 275-286.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117-140. doi: 10.1177/001872675400700202
Forehand, M., & Perkins, A. (2005). Implicit assimilation and explicit contrast: A set/reset model of response to celebrity voice-overs. Journal of Consumer Research, 32(3), 435-441. doi: 10.1086/497555
Gross, Sharon, Rolf, H., & Norma, M. (1995). Attitude certainty,” in attitude strength:
Antecedents and consequences, ed. Richard E. Petty and John. A. Krosnick, Mahwah.NJ: Erlbaum, 215-245.
Hadar, L., Sood, S., & Fox, C. (2013). Subjective knowledge in consumer financial decisions.Journal of Marketing Research,50(3), 303-316. doi: 10.1509/jmr.10.0518 Johnson, E., & Russo, J. (1984). Product familiarity and learning new
information. Journal of Consumer Research, 11(1), 542. doi: 10.1086/208990 Martin, L. (1986). Set/reset: Use and disuse of concepts in impression formation.Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology,51(3), 493-504. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.51.3.493
Petty, R., & Cacioppo, J. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to persuasion.New York: Springer - Verlag.
Petty, R., & Wegener, D. (1999). The elaboration likelihood model: current status and controversies.New York: Guilford Press, 41-72.
Petty, R., Briñol, P., & Tormala, Z. (2002). Thought confidence as a determinant of persuasion: The self-validation hypothesis.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,82(5), 722-741. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.82.5.722
Petty, R., Briñol, P., Tormala, Z., & Wegener, D. (2007). The role of meta-cognition in social judgment.E. T. Higgins & A. Kruglanski (Eds.). Social Psychology:
Handbook of Basic Principles (2Nd Ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
Petty, R., Wegener, D., & White, P. (1998). Flexible correction processes in social judgment: Implications for persuasion.Social Cognition,16(1), 93-113. doi:
10.1521/soco.1998.16.1.93
Razmdoost, K., Dimitriu, R., & Macdonald, E. (2015). The effect of overconfidence and underconfidence on consumer value.Psychology & Marketing,32(4), 392-407. doi:
10.1002/mar.20787
Wegener, D., & Petty, R. (1995). Flexible correction processes in social judgment: The role of naive theories in corrections for perceived bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(1), 36-51. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.68.1.36