How can you persuade me online? The impact of goal-driven motivations on attention to online information

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Author
Taylor, Sarah
Graff, Martin
Taylor, Rachel
Date
2019-11-25Acceptance date
2019-11-23
Type
Article
Publisher
Elsevier
ISSN
0747-5632
Embargoed until
2021-11-25
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Individuals are increasingly using the internet to communicate online with many of their interactions being persuasive. Whilst there is some evidence to suggest that persuasion can occur online it is still unclear as to the underlying mechanisms driving this process. The current study aims to address this by examining individuals’ attention to, and motivations to process, online information. To achieve this, an information recall paradigm was adopted whereby an undergraduate student sample (n = 91) were asked to recall information which had been presented to them in pre-scripted personally-relevant scenarios. Results identified that peripheral (e.g. contextual) cues activated goal-driven motivations significantly increasing attention to message content (i.e. central information) when personal benefits were implied. Conversely, when personal costs were implied these effects were reversed and information processing significantly attenuated. These results serve to reinforce the notion that online information processing is motivated by goal-driven behaviour and are the first to identify how goals impact on information processing. The findings have implications for both organisations and individuals who use the internet for persuasive purposes (e.g. political campaigning) and are discussed in relation to the dominant theories of persuasion and how they can explain online persuasion.
Journal/conference proceeding
Computers in Human Behavior;
Citation
Taylor, S., Graff, M. and Taylor, R. (2020) 'How can you persuade me online? The impact of goal-driven motivations on attention to online information', Computers in Human Behavior, 105, p.106210. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2019.106210.
Description
Article published in Computers in Human Behavior on 25 November 2019, available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.106210.
Sponsorship
Cardiff Metropolitan University (Grant ID: Cardiff Metropolian (Internal))
Collections
- Un-themed [116]
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