Influences of Identified Victim Images on Processing Fluency

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to explore whether identifiable victim and processing fluency effects would be confirmed in the context of a charity ad encouraging viewers to help a victim in need. The processing fluency was examined by both objective fluency data captured by eye movement and subjective experiences of processing fluency. An eye-tracking experiment (N = 197) found a message that was easy to process required little time to process. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance revealed that participants in the identified victim condition experienced a greater fluency. A victim’s sad face versus happy face caused viewers’ emotional contagion into the victim’s negative emotional state, and this negative affect guided information processing. The objective fluency was found to mediate the effect of viewers’ negative affect on their sympathetic state, which in turn led to a greater willingness to help the victim in need.

KEYWORDS:

• Charity advertising
• identifiable victim effect
• intention to donate
• objective processing fluency
• subjective processing fluency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.