(The lack of) fluency and perceptions of decision making

ABSTRACT

Research consistently finds that fluent stimuli in marketing communications are better liked and more trusted than more difficult to process stimuli. This paper describes four studies showing that the attitudes towards difficult-to-process stimuli increase significantly when compared to the easy-to-process stimuli, thus adding to the growing ‘disfluency’ literature. We show that attitudes increase towards a less fluent option when individuals misattribute the extra effort, spent in processing the information, to the decision making rather than the stimuli itself. The studies have important theoretical implications for understanding the mechanism by which lack of processing fluency influences attitude formation, and, have practical implications for understanding how and when to use disfluent stimuli in marketing communications.

KEYWORDS:

• Disfluency
• processing fluency
• marketing communications
• affect
• advertising
• attitudes

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the support provided by Dr. John P. Murry (Department of Marketing, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa) in the early stages of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gaurav Jain

Gaurav Jain, is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at The Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in New York. Dr. Jain holds a Ph.D. in Marketing and Consumer-Behavior from The Tippie College of Business at The University of Iowa. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and an MBA in Marketing and Economics.

Sunaina Shrivastava

Sunaina Shrivastava, is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at The O'Malley School of Business at Manhattan College in New York . Dr. Shrivastava holds a Ph.D. in Marketing and Consumer-Behavior from The Tippie College of Business at The University of Iowa. Having spent 7+ years in the field of Behavioral Science/Economics, Dr. Sunaina Shrivastava is a specialist in terms of Consumer-Behavior and Judgment & Decision Making.

Dhananjay Nayakankuppam

Dhananjay Nayakankuppam, is a Professor of Marketing at the Henry B Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.  He currently serves as the Departmental Executive Officer for the Marketing Department. He received his PhD in Marketing at the University of Michigan in 2000. His areas of expertise include decision making, evaluative processes and social cognitive and judgment.

Gary J. Gaeth

Gary J Gaeth, is Professor of Marketing and holds the Cedar Rapids Chair of Business. He joined the University in 1983 and holds a Ph.D. and an MS in Psychology from Kansas State University, an MS in Mathematics from University of Wyoming and a BS in Mathematics/Statistics from Northern Michigan University. In his career, Gary has held positions of PhD. Program Director, Faculty Advisor to the Evening MBA Program, Associate Dean of the School of Management and Departmental Executive Officer for the Marketing Department.