The role of affective reactions in enhancing the recall of public service announcements

Mass media investigations of public service announcements (PSAs) have failed to fully examine how affective reactions generated by television programs influence individuals’ learning of PSA‐based content. This study used the mood‐congruency hypothesis to examine the following question: Do emotional reactions generated by televised programs influence individuals’ encoding and learning of PSA‐based content? This question was explored by conducting two experiments. Success of the mood manipulations and recall of PSAs were assessed through the use of self‐report measures. The results of the main experimental study failed to support the theoretical hypotheses of the research. However, the research did demonstrate that the negative PSAs were better recalled than the positive PSAs across the positive, negative, and neutral program conditions. The results also indicated that, overall, female respondents recalled more information than male respondents. Limitations of this research and implications for future research are also discussed.

Notes

Rani Shah (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Widener University, One University Place, Chester, PA 19013 ([email protected]). The author wishes to thank Glenn G. Sparks, Ph.D., Purdue University, for his help. A version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association (ICA) Chicago, May 1996.