Heterogeneity in the Effects of Online Persuasion

Maurits Kaptein and Dean Eckles

Journal of Interactive Marketing, 2012, vol. 26, issue 3, 176-188

Abstract: Average effects of influence strategies on consumers' attitudes and behaviors have been studied extensively. Less is known about the relative size of individual differences in these effects, despite recognition of their importance in social psychology. Two experiments use repeated exposures to influence strategies to identify the effects of each social influence strategy for individual participants. Study 1 provides evidence of large variation in the effects of influence strategies, such that for many participants the estimated effect of using an influence strategy is negative, even though the effect of that strategy is significantly positive on average. Study 2 replicates these findings over three sessions, each a week apart. The observed variation in responses to influence strategies cannot be attributed to transient intra-individual variation (e.g., strategy×mood interactions). Meta-judgmental measures of personality constructs (e.g., need for cognition) explain only a small portion of the observed variance, suggesting the importance of directly modeling heterogeneity in responses to influence attempts. These results are important for interactive marketeers since they indicate that different influence strategies substantially differ in their effects on individual consumers and should thus be adapted to individuals.

Keywords: Influence strategies; Persuasion; Individual differences; Online commerce; Adaptive marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094996812000035
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joinma:v:26:y:2012:i:3:p:176-188

DOI: 10.1016/j.intmar.2012.02.002

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Interactive Marketing is currently edited by B. T. Ratchford

More articles in Journal of Interactive Marketing from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().