The Role of Humor in the Persuasion of Individuals Varying in Need For Cognitionm

ABSTRACT - Empirical research is contradictory concerning the impact humor has on individuals low and
high in need for cognition (NFC). An empirical study with 510 Belgian citizens using humorous and non-
humorous advertising stimuli shows that humor has a positive impact on the attitudes of both high and
low NFC-individuals, but that attitude formation takes place in a different way. For individuals low in NFC
a direct effect of humor on attitudes is found, while for individuals high in NFC an indirect influence via
biased cognitions can be observed.

Empirical research is contradictory concerning the impact humor has on individuals low and
high in need for cognition (NFC). An empirical study with 510 Belgian citizens using humorous
and non-humorous advertising stimuli shows that humor has a positive impact on the attitudes of
both high and low NFC-individuals, but that attitude formation takes place in a different way.
For individuals low in NFC a direct effect of humor on attitudes is found, while for individuals
high in NFC an indirect influence via biased cognitions can be observed.

Since the eighties the use of emotional advertising has risen substantially. In some countries the
use of emotional appeals has increased from about 45% to 70% of the ads over the period 1975-
1995 (De Pelsmacker and Geuens 1997). Within the category of emotional advertising,
humorous appeals have become very popular. For instance, in a study of 33 different countries
McCullough (1992) found that, regardless of the country, about 35% of magazine and outdoor
advertisements was humorous.

Together with the increasing use of emotions in advertising, research interest in this field
boomed. A multitude of studies have compared the relative impact of emotional versus
informational advertising appeals on cognitions, attitudes and behavioral intentions (Fabrigar and
Petty 1999). The same holds for humorous versus non-humorous appeals in particular (see
Weinberger and Gulas 1992 for an elaborate overview). Despite the popularity of humor in
advertising, its impact is not unequivocally positive. In their meta-analysis Weinberger and
Gulas (1992) indicate that several variables moderate the impact of humorous ads: for example,
product category, the newness of the product and the brand, the type of humor, and the
relationship between the product or the brand on the one hand, and the humor on the other. Other
examples of moderating variables are audience involvement (Zhang and Zinkhan 1994), self-
monitoring (Lammers 1991) and afect intensity (Geuens and De Pelsmacker 1999). These results
show that humor can lead to more positive responses in some individuals than in other.

The relationship between audience characteristics or individual differences like affect intensity
and need for cognition, and responses to advertising has already been studied frequently, and
becomes more and more relevant with the increasing use of direct marketing communication
techniques (LaBarbera et al. 1998). Indeed, in their search for more communication effectiveness
companies try to tailor their communication messages to the individual characteristics of the
members of their target groups. More specifically, the impact of individual differences in need
for cognition (NFC) on the responses to humorous advertising is not clear yet. Inconsistent
results have been encountered as to whether humor can persuade individuals who are high in
need for cognition. The proposition in this study is that humor influences the attitudes of both
high and low NFC-individuals in a positive way, but that in respondents low in NFC humor has a

1
direct effect, while in individuals high in NFC humor exerts an indirect effect by biasing ad-
evoked cognitions. After reviewing the relevant literature, an experimental study designed to
investigate the moderating impact of need for cognition in the processing of a humorous message
is described, and the results of the analyses are discussed.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Persuasion and need for cognition

Cacioppo and Petty (1982) define Need for Cognition (NFC) as "a tendency to engage in and
enjoy thinking" (p.116). Individuals high in NFC are motivated to elaborate on a message and
scrutinize messages very carefully, while their low NFC-counterparts usually are not willing to
devote a lot of cognitive resources to process a message and are more likely to use heuristic
processing. Over the past two decades NFC has been studied in various settings and appeared to
account for significant variance in information processing and attitude formation (see Cacioppo
et al. 1996 for an elaborate review). As opposed to their low NFC-counterparts, individuals high
in NFC have been shown to follow the central rather than the peripheral route to persuasion
(Elaboration Likelihood Model, Petty and Cacioppo 1986) implying that they focus more on
message-relevant cues and the strength of the arguments used. More specifically, research results
indicate that individuals high in NFC (a) focus more on central information cues (Baker and Lutz
2000), (b) process a larger range of information cues and accept wider price ranges if these
prices seem justified by relevant cues (Inman et al. 1990, Suri and Monroe 2001), (c) process
information more thoroughly than their low NFC counterparts (Haughtvedt et al. 1992, Peltier
and Schibrowsky 1994, Mantel and Kardes 1999), (d) collect information on more aspects of a
problem and excel in problem-solving tasks (Nair and Ramnarayan 2000), (e) form attitudes that
are more resistant and persistent over time (Haughtvedt and Petty 1992, Areni et al. 2000), (f)
develop more topic-relevant cognitions (Haughtvedt et al. 1992), and (g) respond more positively
to factual appeals, informationally dense ads and ads containing high quality arguments
(Cacioppo et al. 1996). Individuals low in NFC are more likely to be impacted by peripheral
cues, esecially when they are unfamiliar with the product or brand and attitudes still need to be
developed (Hamilton et al. 1993). Research has shown that people low in NFC respond to
peripheral cues such as: (a) celebrities (Ul Haque and Bahn 1996), (b) an attractive endorser
(Cacioppo et al. 1996), (c) promotional cues (Inman et al. 1990), (d) the number of arguments
(Cacioppo et al. 1996), and (e) message framing (Smith and Levin 1996).

NFC and biased information processing

Although the information processing of individuals high in NFC might appear very rational and
objective, this is not always the case. They indeed focus on the merits of the information they are
exposed to, but their information-processing activity can in some circumstances be biased in
different ways. One source of bias may arise from mood (Cacioppo et al. 1996). Several
researchers studied the impact of mood on persuasion, and the general conclusion seems to be
that a positive mood leads to a greater persuasive impact (McGuire 1985). Petty et al. (1993)
review some of the explanations that have been proposed to account for this fact. A first
explanation is that mood can influence attitudes directly through a simple association or
inference process. A second explanation concentrates on the impact of mood on cognitions. The

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assumption here is that mood can have an effect on attitudes by biasing the cognitive responses
evoked by the communication in a mood-congruent direction. In other words, a positive mood
may facilitate retrieval of positive information from memory, induce positive cognitions, lead to
a positive interpretation of the message and to less scrutinizing of the message (because one feels
safe and sees the world positively). On the other hand, a negative mood may facilitate the
retrieval of negative information, lead to more negative cognitive responses, result in a negative
interpretation of the message, and in a more careful consideration of the arguments (Isen 1989,
Schwarz and Bohner 1996).

According to Petty et al. (1993) this biased-thinking effect is more likely for individuals high in
NFC because they are more prone to engage in elaborate processing. Research results seem to
support this view. Petty et al. (1993), for example, found that inducing a positive mood led to an
equally positive effect on the attitude towards a foster care program for both high and low NFC-
individuals. However, positive mood did not evoke more positive cognitions in individuals low
in NFC, while it led to an increase in the proportion of positive thoughts of high NFC-
respondents. Furthermore, in low NFC-individuals positive mood had a direct effect on attitudes
that was not mediated by thoughts, while for their high NFC-counterparts no direct, but an
indirect effect of mood on attitudes via cognitions could be observed. Wegener et al. (1994)
studied the impact of mood on the persuasive effects of a message emphasizing the benefits of
following a recommendation or the costs of not following a recommendation. Individuals in a
positive mood were more persuaded by the 'benefits’ message, while the 'cost’ message had a
greater impact on individuals in a negative mood. For high NFC-respondents the influence of
mood on attitudes was mediated by likelihood judgements, while for low NFC-respondents no
mediation effect was encountered. Areni et al. (2000) provide other evidence that a peripheral
cue (in this case not mood, but reported group opinions) can influence low NFC-respondents in a
peripheral way and high NFC individuals in a central way by biasing topic-relevant thinking.
The conclusion of their study was that reported group opinions affect the attitudes of low and
high NFC-individuals in a similarway, but the effect is mediated by ratings of topic-relevant
arguments for high NFC-individuals.

The preliminary conclusion is that high NFC-individuals are likely to be more affected by mood
induced biased thinking effects, although their attitudes do not seem to be influenced in a way
different from low NFC-individuals.

NFC and humor

Two studies have investigated the moderating influence of NFC on the response to humorous
appeals. Zhang (1996) tested a humorous and a non-humorous print ad containing weak or strong
arguments for a fictitious brand. His conclusion is that humor only mattered for low NFC-
individuals and the strength of the arguments only for high NFC-respondents. On the other hand,
Geuens and De Pelsmacker (1998) tested TV commercials for existing brands and distinguished
three different levels of humor (no, moderate and high). They found that humor (and especially a
high level of humor) affected feelings, attitudes and purchase intention of both high and low
NFC-respondents. No mediation effects were investigated. Since both studies lead to
contradictory results, the question remains if humor can also persuade high NFC-individuals.

3
Research hypotheses

The objective of this study is to find out a) whether humor in advertising leads to more positive
responses, and to direct and/or indirect persuasive effects, and b) to what extent they are different
for high and low NFC-individuals. Therefore, following hypotheses are advanced:

H1: The use of humor has a positive effect on ad-evoked feelings, ad-related and brand-related
cognitions, the attitude towards the ad (Aad), and the attitude towards the brand (Ab), regardless
of whether individuals are low or high in NFC.

The positive effect of humorous messages on ad-evoked feelings, Aad and Ab has been found
frequently in previous research (Weinberger and Gulas 1992). Also for low NFC-individuals a
positive effect of humor on cognitions is hypothesized. The reason for this is that in the literature
discussing the effects of humorous appeals it has been frequently stressed that humor attracts
significantly more attention (Lammers 1991, Weinberger and Gulas 1992, De Pelsmacker and
Geuens 1996) and evokes a significantly higher cognitive response (Chattopadhyay and Basu
1990). Therefore, in the case of humorous appeals, we assume that also low NFC-individuals
will generate more cognitions. Furthermore, the findings of Petty et al (1993), Wegener et al.
(1994) and Geuens and De Pelsmacker (1998) suggest that the effects of humor do not differ
between individuals high and low in NFC.

H2a: There is a direct effect of humor on the attitude towards the brand of low NFC-individuals
that is not mediated by cognitive responses.

H2b: The effect of humor on the attitude towards the brand of high NFC-individuals is mediated
by cognitive responses.

Since humor can be considered a peripheral cue that evokes positive feelings in respondents
(Geuens and De Pelsmacker 1998), we propose that humor has a similar effect as mood (Petty
and Cacioppo 1993, Wegener et al. 1994). We expect that humor impacts the attitudes of both
high and low NFC-individuals, although the effect on high NFC-respondents is assumed to be
mediated by biased cognitive responses. Hypotheses 2a and 2b refine the analysis of Zhang
(1996) in that the effect of humor on individuals with varying NFC is related to the cognitive
impact of the message.

RESEARCH METHOD

Advertising stimuli

Eight fictitious advertisements made by a professional designer were used. To minimize possible
confounding effects of the product category a humorous and a non-humorous version was
created for four different products: paper handkerchiefs (low involvement, informational
product), insurances (high involvement, informational product), a snack (low involvement,
transformational product), and holidays (high involvement, transformational product). The
humor is of the incongruity type (McCullough and Taylor 1993) and consists of a picture of a
dog standing in front of its dog kennel. The dog has just found an enormous bone. Holding the

4
bone in its mouth the dog does not seem to be able to figure out a way to enter its kennel. The
headlines differed for each product category, but all alluded to size. For the handkerchiefs "A
more convenient size, a smaller price" was used, while "Large, tasteful and healthy. For a strong
appetite." formed the copy for the snack, "Tailored insured. Call our free number for more
information on our extremely advantageous insurances. For a care-free future." for the insurance
company, and "More holiday for less money. Tailored holidays." In the non-humorous versions
no pictures were used, but the slogans were kept the same.

Respondents

As part of a larger investigation, 600 respondents were invited to the University of Antwerp
(Belgium) to measure their responses to various advertising appeals. 510 valid responses were
obtained. Of these 510 respondents 49.5% was male and 50.5% female. 45.7% was aged
between 20 and 29, 25.3% between 30 and 39, and 29.1% between 40 and 55. 14.7% only held a
primary degree, 32.7% a secondary degree, and 52.6% held a college or university degree. The
group was randomly split in four subgroups. Each group saw four ads, of which two were test
ads and two were filler ads. The test ads were for different product categories, and the order of
the ads was randomized to avoid sequence effects.

Measures

Manipulation control.

Two items ("I think this ad is amusing" and "I think this ad is funny") measured on a 7-point
Likert type scale (1 = I totally disagree, 7 = I totally agree) were used to find out whether the
manipulation was successful. Since the correlation between the two items was high (r= .65,
p<.001), the mean of the two items was calculated ('perceived humor’). The manipulation proved
to be successful: the respondents perceived the humorous ads as significantly more humorous
than the non-humorous ads (t-test, 4.99 versus 2.39, p<.001).

Need for cognition.

Need for cognition was measured by means of the 15-item Dutch scale, tested and validated by
Pieters et al. (1987). Principle components analysis with Varimax rotation indicated that one
main factor underlies the structure of the NFC scale, explaining 27% of the variance (coefficient
alpha = .70). These results resemble the ones obtained by other researchers (Pieters et al. 1987,
Nair and Ramnarayan 2000). Subjects were rank ordered and split into thirds. Subjects whose
NFC score fell in the middle group were not included in the analyses (cf. Inman et al. 1990,
Zhang and Buda 1999, Suri and Monroe 2001). The mean NFC score for low NFC-respondents
is significantly lower than for their high counterparts (t-test, 2.90 versus 3.88, p<.001).

Affective responses.

The 17-item Dutch scale of Pieters and De Klerk-Warmerdam (1996) was used since this scale is
substantially shorter than the scale of Edell and Burke (1987), itcontains all factors distinguished
in other affective responses scales such as in the Standardized Emotional Profile (Holbrook and

5
Batra 1988), and unlike the SEP it also contains items often encountered in advertising research
such as "feeling irritated" and "being bored". The 17 items were measured by means of a 7-point
Likert type scale. Principal components analysis with Varimax rotation indicated four factors
explaining 64% of the variance. The first factor comprises items such as feeling curious, excited,
active and playful, and is labeled "upbeat feelings" (coefficient alpha = .81). The second factor
"sentimental feelings" comprises items such as feeling sentimental and mollified (correlation
= .69, p<.001). The "negative feelings" factor consists of items such as feeling guilty, sad and
scared (coefficient alpha = .75), while the fourth factor "critical feelings" is composed of the
items feeling bored, uninterested, annoyed and suspicious (coefficient alpha = .78). For each
factor the mean of the composing items is calculated.

Cognitive responses.

Respondents were given a few minutes time to write down all the thoughts that crossed their
mind when watching the ad. Afterwards, these cognitive responses were classified by the
researchers as positive or negative, and ad- or brand-related (cf. Miniard et al. 1990, MacKenzie
and Spreng 1992).

Attitude towards the ad (Aad).

Seven items based on previous work (Miniard et al. 1990, Olney et al. 1991, Cho and Stout
1993) were used: pleasant / unpleasant, likable / unlikable, unfavorable / favorable, persuasive /
unpersuasive, informative / uninformative, believable / unbelievable, effective / ineffective. All
items were measured on a 7-point scale. Since coefficient alpha is comfortably high (.87), a
mean of the seven Aad-items is calculated to indicate the Aad score [While there is no generally
accepted way to create composite scores, different approaches may lead to different results. As
suggested by one of the reviewers, besides averaging the different items to form the composite,
also a single factor CFA model is conducted. The weights determined for each item are used as a
multiplier for the respective items after which all items are summed into a composite score. The
correlations between the firstly and secondly created composite scores are very close to one. As a
consequence, no differences in results can be observed due to a difference in how the composite
scores were created.].

Attitude towards the brand (Ab).

The following five items were measured on a 7-point scale: favorable / unfavorable, nice / awful,
unappealing / appealing, useful / useless, satisfactory / unsatisfactory (Batra 1986, Cho and Stout
1993). Also for this scale coefficient alpha is high (.84). Therefore, the Ab score will be
represented by the mean of the five Ab items1.

In between the affective responses, cognitive responses and attitude measurements, respondents
filled out personality scales and unrelated other questions. The total procedure took about one
hour and a half.

RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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To test the first hypothesis two-way ANOVA’s were carried out with NFC (low, high) and
humor (yes, no) as independent variables and affective responses, cognitions and attitudes as
dependent variables (see Table 1). No significant main effect of NFC on affective responses, and
attitudes could be detected. NFC did not exert any influence on the number of positive ad- and
brand-related cognitions either, but significantly impacted the number of negative ad- and brand-
related cognitions. As encountered elsewhere, high as compared to low NFC-individuals
developed significantly more negative cognitions, indicating that high NFC-individuals may be
more skeptical (Cacioppo et al. 1996).

As predicted, the use of humor had a positive impact on all affective responses except on the
negative feelings. When exposed to a humorous as compared to a non-humorous ad, respondents
experienced significantly more intense upbeat and sentimental feelings, and less intense critical
feelings. Furthermore, in line with the hypothesis of less critical and mood-congruent processing
when being in a positive mood or experiencing positive affect, the use of humor significantly
increased the number of positive ad-related cognitions, while the number of negative ad- and
brand-related cognitions decreased significantly (Isen 1989, Schwarz and Bohner 1996).
Surprisingly, the number of positive brand-related cognitions decreased as a result of the
exposure to humorous ads. The reason for this can be that humor attracted a lot of attention to the
ad at the expense of the brand. As a result, more ad- than brand-related cognitions may have
been formed reducing both the number of positive and negative brand-related cognitions for the
humorous as compared to the non-humorous ads. As hypothesized and in line with previous
results, humor had a significantly positive effect on the attitude towards the ad and the attitude
towards the brand (Weinberger and Gulas 1992, De Pelsmacker and Geuens 1996).

TABLE 1 MAIN AND INTERACTION EFFECTS OF NFC AND HUMOR

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 FIGURE 1 DIRECT EFFECT OF HUMOR ON Ab FOR INDIVIDUALS LOW IN NFC

Since no significant interaction effects between humor and NFC were detected, it can be
concluded that all the results described above hold regardless of the level of NFC, providing
support for hypothesis one. Indeed, humor seems to have a uniformly positive impact on both
low and high NFC-individuals. This contradicts the findings of Zhang (1996) and to a certain
extent confirms the findings of Geuens and De Pelsmacker (1998).

To test H2a and H2b, separate path analyses for high and low NFC-individuals were carried out
using AMOS, an SPSS-based tool for structural equation modeling. The paths depicted in Figure
1 and Figure 2 were simultaneously estimated.

For low NFC-individuals only a direct effect of perceived humor on the attitude towards the
brand can be observed. Humor exerts a significant influence on positive and negative ad-related
cognitions, as well as on negative brand-related cognitions, but these cognitions have no
significant impact on the attitude towards the brand. On the other hand, the attitudes of high
NFC-individuals are influenced directly by positive and negative brand-related cognitions, and
indirectly by the effect of perceived humor on negative ad-related cognitions. These results lend
support to both hypothesis 2a and 2b, and confirm the findings by Petty and Cacippo (1993) and
Wegener et al. (1994).

However, it should be noted that the direction of the impact of cognitions on Ab is

counterintuitive. Negative ad- and brand-related cognitions are positively correlated with Ab,
while positive brand-related cognitions are negatively correlated with Ab. A possible explanation

8
for this result can perhaps be found in the contrast effect. An affective context cue, such as a
happy mood (or as in this case the use of humor), may influence object evaluations in two
different ways. First of all, it may lead to an assimilation of object responses toward the affect
found in the context (this is the assimilation effect or mood-congruent effect described above).
Another possibility is that individuals partial out the effect of the contextual affect. By doing so
individuals often over adjust their object evaluations resulting in a contrast effect (Meyers-Levy
and Tybout 1997). Whether an assimilation or contrast effect will occur depends on how
appropriate the contextual cue is considered to be for evaluating the object, and how much
cognitive resources the individual is able and willing to expend to processing the message. With
respect to the latter, persons high in NFC have been proved to be more likely to show a contrast
effect than low NFC-individuals. However, Meyers-Levy and Tybout (1997) observed that in
case there is no semantic relation between the context and the object (when it is easy to realize
that the contextual affect is inappropriate for judging the object), both high and low NFC-
respondents show a contrast effect. In the present study there clearly is no evident relation
between the humor (the dog and the bone) and the product advertised. Therefore, it may be
possible that the respondents adjusted their evaluation of the brand to partial out the positive
affect and positive thoughts that were evoked by the humor in order to come to their "true"
evaluation of the brand.

FIGURE 2

INDIRECT EFFECT OF HUMOR ON Ab FOR INDIVIDUALS HIGH IN NFC

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

9
Understanding individual customers and building good customer relationships have become key
to remain competitive. Therefore, studies investigating individual differences in perception,
appreciation and persuasion of communicative messages can give valuable insights into how to
communicate with different target groups and individual customers. Need for cognition is an
individual difference variable that has been shown to moderate the responses to various types of
messages and persuasive appeals. However, unlike the results of previous studies, the current
results suggest that individuals low and high in NFC respond in a similar way to humorous
appeals. Although humorous messages lead to more positive affective and cognitive reactions
and attitudes than non-humorous ones, no difference between the attitudes of low and high NFC-
individuals could be found. However, the attitudes seem to have been formed in a different way.
Attitude formation of low NFC-individuals seems to be based on a simple association or
inference process, while attitudes of high NFC-individuals seem to be formed more as a result of
biased processing. Indeed, for individuals low in NFC only a direct effect of perceived humor on
brand attitude was found, while for high NFC-respondents no direct, but an indirect effect via
cognitive responses was encountered. However, reality may be more complex than that. Taking a
closer look at the valence of the regression coefficients of the cognitive responses, it may be that
over and above the previous effects, for both high andlow NFC-individuals a contrast effect took
place. Possibly, respondents considered the humor (the dog holding a bone that was too large to
fit in his dog kennel) as an irrelevant affective context cue and therefore corrected their brand
attitude to partial out the effects of the humor. Previous research on the impact of humorous
appeals already stressed the importance of the link between the humor and the brand for
advertising effectiveness (Weinberger and Gulas 1992). If indeed a contrast effect occurred, the
present results support the latter view. More research is needed to explore this phenomenon
further. Future research could compare the effects of humor related and unrelated to the brand
advertised and investigate whether for related humor assimilation effects can be detected and for
unrelated humor contrast effects. Related to this, it would be interesting to investigate which
types of context cues are considered as appropriate and inappropriate for different individuals, in
order to get a better idea when assimilation and contrast effects can be expected.

10
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