Joel B. Cohen

Affect Monitoring and the Primacy of Feelings in Judgment

Multidisciplinary evidence suggests that people often make evaluative judgments by monitoring their feelings toward the target. This article examines, in the context of moderately complex and consciously accessible stimuli, the judgmental properties of consciously monitored feelings. Results from four studies show that, compared to cold, reason-based assessments of the target, the conscious monitoring of feelings provides judgmental responses that are (a) potentially faster, (b) more stable and consistent across individuals, and importantly (c) more predictive of the number and valence of people’s thoughts. These findings help explain why the monitoring of feelings is an often diagnostic pathway to evaluation in judgment and decision making.

An examination of the Fishbein-Ajzen behavioral-intentions model's concepts and measures ☆

Abstract The Fishbein-Ajzen behavioral-intentions model is designed to represent the effect of attitudes and subjective norms on behavioral intentions. The model has been used in a variety of contexts, and evidence for its validity flows largely from its generally good performance in predicting behavioral intentions. However, the manner in which these concepts are defined and operationalized appears to make it inappropriate for those seeking to distinguish between personal and normative reasons for engaging in a behavior. Additional problems were found in the hypothesized relationship between the more global normative construct and its underlying components.

Modeling Personal and Normative Influences on Behavior

The Fishbein behavioral intention model combines all beliefs about the consequences of an act into a single attitude component. We propose a new model that separates personal and nonnative reasons for engaging in behavior. Two studies permitted multiple tests of the models validity. The results support the models potential for distinguishing between personal and normative motivations underlying behavior and illustrate the value of such distinctions for understanding behavior. P ersonal attitudes and social influences have long been recognized as playing important roles in consumer decision making. Research examining these two determinants of choice has focused largely on one (e.g., attitude-behavior relationships) to the exclusion of the other (e.g., referent influence, social power). Consequently, little work has been done concerning the relative role each plays in decision making. Identifying the relative importance of each for a given action (e.g., adolescent smoking behavior, adoption of innovations) should be a useful step toward understanding why the behavior occurs and in considering the likely effects of alternative behavior change strategies. A pioneering cognitive approach to integrating these two determinants of choice into a single conceptual framework is the Fishbein behavioral intention model (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980; Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). Within this model, all beliefs about the consequences of behavioral performance (and their associated affect) are combined into an attitude component, whether they pertain to the deepest personal conviction or to the rewards of expedient compliance. Beliefs about referent expectations (whether the referent thinks s/he should or should not engage in the behavior) are treated separately (combined into the normative component) and are considered to reflect social influences with respect to the behavior under study. Thus the Fishbein model does not seek to separate personal from normative

A Multiple Pathway Anchoring and Adjustment (MPAA) Model of Attitude Generation and Recruitment

The Multiple Pathway Anchoring and Adjustment (MPAA) model integrates prior research on attitude formation, accessibility, strength, and attitude-behavior relationships and responds to key challenges to the traditional view of attitudes as enduring predispositions that guide behavior. The MPAA model emphasizes multiple pathways to attitude formation, including outside-in (object-centered) and inside-out (person-centered) pathways. The model also provides a nonoverlapping cognitions rationale for the coexistence of competing attitudes. The MPAA model introduces two subjective assessment criteria (representational and functional sufficiency) to explain how an anchoring and adjustment process functions to permit attitudes to guide behavior.

Does Marketing Products as Remedies Create 'Get Out of Jail Free Cards?'

Our research investigates the marketing of preventive and curative “remedies” (products and services that offer ways of mitigating risk by decreasing either its likelihood or severity). Examples include debt consolidation loans and smoking cessation aids. Like risk-avoidance messages, advertisements for remedies aim to reduce risk—by advocating the use of the branded product or service promoted by the marketer. In a series of experiments, we demonstrate that remedy messages undermine risk perceptions and increase risky behavioral intentions as consumer problem status rises. Ironically, remedies undermine risk avoidance among those most at risk—a boomerang effect with negative consequences for consumer welfare.

Affective Intuition and Task-Contingent Affect Regulation

Mood influences cognitive activity and behavior in systematic ways. Since such affective contingencies are repeatedly and broadly experienced, they should be available for learning and possibly conscious introspection. We examine the role of such intuitive theories in guiding affect regulation in a series of four studies and show that even suboptimal hedonic adjustments (i.e., preferences for the negative pole of the affective spectrum such as negative mood maintenance) were deliberately chosen in an attempt to match cognitive requirements of forthcoming tasks. We contrast affect discrepancy and strength of signal hypotheses to explain how affect regulation goals are activated.

Cognitive Dissonance and Consumer Behavior

In recent years, the social sciences have had a greater impact on business. This article examines a viewpoint of considerable significance—the theory of cognitive dissonance—in the reactions of smokers to information about the smoking-cancer linkage.

Playing to Win: Marketing and Public Policy at Odds over Joe Camel

This article is based on the 1998 testimony the author provided for In the Matter of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company as an expert witness for the Federal Trade Commission. After providing an overview of the Joe Camel campaign and the Federal Trade Commissions investigation of it, the author considers consumer protection issues that provide a perspective for assessing Reynoldss acts and practices. He then focuses on an analysis of Reynoldss competitive position in the cigarette marketplace and why that was likely to influence subsequent marketing strategy and the development of the Joe Camel campaign. The author next discusses the campaign at some length before returning to an explicit assessment of the campaign and the types of criteria that might be adopted for this purpose.

An extended expectancy-value approach to contraceptive alternatives

The expectancy value-normative influence model is based on the premise that the overall value to an individual of using an object (e.g. a specific contraceptive method) is a function of the degree to which its use is perceived to result in favorable consequences and the avoidance of unfavorable ones. Components of the Fishbein Extended Model are identified and discussed. The first the attitudinal component (Aact) made up of overt behavior (B) and behavioral intent (BI) incorporates 1) the individuals strength of belief connecting each salient contraceptive attribute and consequence of use to an individuals evaluation of each of the salient attributes. This component also includes the expectancy (beliefs regarding contraceptive characteristics) and the value (whether these characteristics and their results will be satisfactory or unsatisfactory). Normative beliefs (NBi) and motivation to comply (MCi) round out the model structure. This model was applied in a pilot study of contraceptive alternatives. The 23 attitude items used in the questionnaire were derived from in-depth interviews with 8 discussion groups composed of men and women of different backgrounds and were pretested on 117 respondents. The sample consisted of 58 individuals (21 males 37 females) ages 18 or older. Multiple correlations varied from R = .46 (pill males) to .88 (diaphragm females) with a median R of .57 and tended to be higher for females perhaps reflecting their greater involvement in the contraception decision-making process. The highest multiple Rs were obtained for lesser used methods such as the diaphragm and foam. Female intentions for the couple to use condoms were dominated by the normative (perceptions regarding the actions we think important others believe should be taken) rather than attitudinal (beliefs regarding the characteristics associated with the consequences of a method) component as were male intentions to have the couple use oral contraception. Attitudinal influences predominated for the diaphragm while IUD intentions were largely under normative control and those for foam under joint influence. Highly significant attitudinal correlations were found for questionnaire items that the user groups considered relevant for their evaluations of the method. While these findings should be considered tentative given the small and restrictive sample they illustrate the potential of this theoretical approach for understanding family planning and population behavior.

When Communications Collide with Recipients' Actions: Effects of Post-Message Behavior on Intentions to Follow the Message Recommendation

Two experiments investigated the processes through which post-message behavior (e.g., noncompliance) influences resistance to the message. Participants in Experiment 1 read preventive, consumer-education messages that either opposed the consumption of an alcohol-like product or recommended moderation. Half of the participants then tried the product, whereas the remaining participants performed a filler task. In the absence of trial, the two messages had the same effect. However, recipients of the abstinence-promoting preventive message who tried the product had stronger intentions to use the product in the future than recipients of the moderation message. This finding suggests that assessments of message impact may be inadequate unless an opportunity for trial is also provided. Results are interpreted in terms of self-perception and cognitive dissonance and contrasted from psychological reactance.