KOREASCHOLAR

In this research, we are going to explore the effect of processing fluency and different types of appeal on consumer’s prosocial intention. There are contradictory findings regarding the effects of processing fluency whether easy to process fluency (EPF) or difficult to process fluency (DPF) is more efficient to lead prosocial behavior (Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 2004). However, we predict that different appeals based on egoistic or altruistic motives may influence people’s perceptions of processing fluency. In particular, if a primed appeal concerns egoistic motives, effort to reach the selfish appeal could not be reflected as honorable for themselves (Zhang, Xu, Jiang, & Huang, 2010). As a result, we predict that such perceived disgraceful efforts will increase unpleasant emotional states such as guilt, which arises when experiencing possible objections to their actions or intentions (Peloza, White, & Shang, 2013). Thus, we hypothesized and found that in study 1, people primed with self-benefiting appeals considered a difficult to process campaign to be less favorable than an easy to process campaign. Self-benefiting appeals increased a sense of guilt when people are in a DPF condition compared to an EPF condition. Finally, in study 2, the demonstrated effect from study 1 was explained with underlying mechanism as a sense of guilt. In conclusion, this study has theoretical implications in discovering the relationship between processing fluency and different types of appeal. When the appeal is considered disgraceful from egoistic motives, putting extra efforts into DPF campaigns is considered unjustifiable through increasing guilty feelings. This effect causes unfavorable attitudes toward DPF campaigns and decreases prosocial behavior. As a result, our findings provide insights for marketers by suggesting effective strategies for designing prosocial campaigns.

• Yaeeun Kim(Temple University, USA)
• Yaeri Kim(Seoul National University, Republic of Korea)
• Vinod Venkatraman(Temple University, USA)
• Kiwan Park(Seoul National University, Republic of Korea)