Men,Muscles, and Machismo: The Relationship Between Television Violence Exposure and Aggression and Hostility in the Presence of Hypermasculinity

This study examined the effects of exposure to television programming that contains both violent actions and macho portrayals of male characters on subsequent self-reports of aggression and hostility. Experimental results showed that those exposed to a violent and hypermasculine television program had a larger increase in reports of aggression and hostility compared to those exposed to a nonviolent, hypermasculine television program. Self-reports of higher levels of hypermasculinity prior to exposure led to larger increases in aggression and hostility after exposure. Predicted interactions between exposure to the stimulus and prior hypermasculinity occurred for many of the aggression/hostility dimensions. The theory of neo-associationism and priming is discussed to explain the patterns of results.     

Children's memory for television advertising: effects of programme–advertisement congruency

The effects of the surrounding programme environment and level of involvement upon children's memory (year 6 primary school, mean age 11.1, SD = 0.4, 48 boys and 69 girls) for television advertisements was examined by manipulating the degree of congruency between the production genre of the programme and the advertisements embedded within it. In Experiment One (n = 56) the ad‐break comprised either all cartoons (n = 4) or all non‐cartoons (n = 4). In Experiment Two (n = 61) cartoon and non‐cartoon advertisements were equally represented in each ad‐break. After viewing, participants provided evaluative ratings of the programme and completed memory tests for advertisements, using prompted recall and brand‐recognition tasks. Memory performance overall was better for cartoon advertisements than for non‐cartoon advertisements, with the latter being poorly remembered when presented in the non‐cartoon programme. In Experiment Two, the programme had no effect on overall recall of advertising, but was related to brand recognition, which was better for advertisements placed in the cartoon programme. Free recall of non‐cartoon advertisements was best when placed in the cartoon programme, while free recall only of cartoon advertisements was best when placed in the non‐cartoon programme. The measures of audience involvement (programme ratings) did not show any significant correlation with memory for advertising. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effects of Programme Context on Memory for Humorous Television Commercials

This study investigated the effects of programme context on memory for humorous television advertisements in South Korean participants. Humorous and nonhumorous Korean advertisements were embedded within two programme contexts: humorous and nonhumorous. When the programme ratings of humour, enjoyment and involvement were higher, unaided recall was poorer. In addition, unaided recall of the advertisements was better when they were embedded within a nonhumorous programme. However, there was no significant programme‐advertisement interaction effect. Overall, both free and cued recall were higher for humorous advertisements than for the nonhumorous advertisements. The findings are discussed in terms of cultural differences and changes in television programmes and advertising over time.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young children's ability to recognize advertisements in web page designs

Identifying what is, and what is not an advertisement is the first step in realizing that an advertisement is a marketing message. Children can distinguish television advertisements from programmes by about 5 years of age. Although previous researchers have investigated television advertising, little attention has been given to advertisements in other media, even though other media, especially the Internet, have become important channels of marketing to children. We showed children printed copies of invented web pages that included advertisements, half of which had price information, and asked the children to point to whatever they thought was an advertisement. In two experiments we tested a total of 401 children, aged 6, 8, 10 and 12 years of age, from the United Kingdom and Indonesia. Six‐year‐olds recognized a quarter of the advertisements, 8‐year‐olds recognized half the advertisements, and the 10‐ and 12‐year‐olds recognized about three‐quarters. Only the 10‐ and 12‐year‐olds were more likely to identify an advertisement when it included a price. We contrast our findings with previous results about the identification of television advertising, and discuss why children were poorer at recognizing web page advertisements. The performance of the children has implications for theories about how children develop an understanding of advertising.     

Effects of Interest,Thematic Congruence,and Typicality on Memory for Television,Radio, and Press Advertisements of New Products

Little is known about how the content of advertisements is remembered. We studied how product interest, thematic congruence between advertisement and programme, and the typicality of the elements of an advertisement affect memory for new product ads in television, radio, and printed media. Participants were exposed to a single type of media with two embedded ads. After a filler task, they completed a true/false recognition task. In television and radio, accuracy was higher for the interesting product ads. In three experiments, we found no effect of thematic congruence, and the standard effect of typicality. In printed media, where participants are free to read the ads or not, the differences in hits and false alarms in typicality were due to a change in the response criterion and not to an effect on memory. We conclude that different results can be obtained depending on the exposure to different media. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Advertisement–programme congruence in memory of sexual fragrance advertisements

The current study explored the effect of sexual content in advertisements and the programme–advertisement congruence on the memory of sexual and nonsexual advertisements. Seventy participants (41 females and 29 males) were randomly allocated to one of four conditions. They viewed either The Bachelorette (sexual programme) or I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (nonsexual programme) with sexual or nonsexual fragrance advertisements placed within the programme. The order of the advertisements was counterbalanced across participants to control for order effects. Free and cued recall of the advertisements were assessed. As predicted, there was a main effect of advertisement type, with the sexual advertisements better recalled than the nonsexual advertisements. Contrary to our prediction, the sexual content of the programme did not have an effect on advertisement recall. There was an interaction between the advertisement type and programme type; sexual advertisements were remembered better when embedded within a sexual programme. Limitations of this study are considered.     

Effects of programme context on memory of humorous television commercials

This study examined the effects of programme context on the memory of humorous television advertisements among a youth sample aged 16 to 18 years. Additionally, the relationship between the enjoyment and involvement properties of the programme and memory for advertisements were investigated. An experimental design was developed to test the memory for a set of six humorous and a set of six non-humorous advertisements within two programme contexts—a news bulletin and a comedy show. Findings indicated that unaided recall for advertisements was affected by programme type with memory for advertising being better from news than from comedy. Further, memory for humorous advertisements was better than that for non-humorous advertisements. Audience involvement with, and enjoyment of, the surrounding programme were found to be associated with poorer memory for advertisement content. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do violent video games impair the effectiveness of in-game advertisements? The impact of gaming environment on brand recall, brand attitude, and purchase intention

The present study examined whether a violent video game impairs the effectiveness of in-game advertisements compared to a nonviolent video game. Participants recalled and evaluated in-game ads after navigating identical violent or nonviolent game scenarios. Participants' brand recall, recognition, and attitudes were comparatively lower after navigating the violent video game. Also, females in the violent game condition reported lower brand attitudes in comparison to males in the violent game condition, thus suggesting that the effects of gaming environment interacts with participants' gender. The findings supported the predictions of the limited capacity model of attention and cognitive priming effects. The results also extend previous studies on how violent media impair advertising effectiveness and provide practical implications for researchers and practitioners.     

Advertising Effectiveness and Attitude Change Vary as a Function of Working Memory Capacity

Prior research has confirmed that the amount of attention paid to an advertisement will influence its effectiveness when it comes to changing consumer attitudes. This study expands on this understanding by exploring how individual differences in the ability to control attention (i.e., working memory capacity; WMC) might further moderate the effect of attention on advertising. Participants who varied in WMC were evaluated on their attitudes towards a consumer brand before and after viewing a video advertisement. While the advertisement did make participants more positive towards the product overall, this change in attitude was directly related to participants' ability to control attention and the degree to which the ad fostered the activation of autobiographical memories. Further, these changes in attitude were unrelated to how well the ad was remembered. This suggests that individual differences in attentional control can influence how advertisements impact customer attitude and the acceptance of persuasive messaging. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Memory for television advertisements as a function of advertisement–programme congruity

An experiment tested memory for a beer advertisement (placed either at the beginning or the end of the centre advertisement break) within four programme contexts featuring beer drinking either before and after, before or after the centre break, or not at all. The relationship between subjective audience evaluation of the programme and memory for advertisements was also investigated. The sample consisted of students (N = 79) aged 17 to 26 years. Brand recognition of the beer advertisement was significantly related to programme content, showing memory for the advertisement being enhanced when relevant programme material followed the break. Congruent material shown before the centre break had the reverse effect of impairing memory for the advertisement. Increased levels of programme involvement were found to be associated with improved recall and recognition of embedded advertisements but higher rated ‘happiness’ of the programme was associated with poorer memory for advertisement content. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sexual and Violent Media's Inhibition of Advertisement Memory: Effect or Artifact?1

Research ( Bushman, 2005 ; Bushman & Bonacci, 2002 ) has claimed to demonstrate that sexual and violent content in television programs inhibits viewers' memory for advertisements. However, that research failed to adequately control other aspects of the programs' content, making interpretation problematic. The present paper attempts to correct these flaws. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that if other aspects of show content are held constant, sex and violence alone do not affect memory for advertisements. Study 3 provides evidence that while sex or violence does not affect memory, other aspects of program content (e.g., plot, humor) do have a significant influence on advertisement memory. Implications of this research on the interpretation of previous research are discussed.     

The effect of fear‐inducing content on memory for advertisements and on retroactive and proactive interference of programme information

The current study focused on whether fear‐inducing content in television advertisements leads to better memory for the advertisement but also impairs memory for programme information that either precedes the advertisements (retroactive interference) or that follows the advertisements (proactive interference). Fifty‐four participants (48 female) aged 18 to 55 watched a programme that had an advertisement break in the centre. This consisted of 6 advertisements with either fear‐inducing or nonfear‐inducing content. Participants were tested on their recall and recognition of the advertisement information as well as their recall of the first half and second half of the programme. The results indicated that fear‐inducing advertisements were better recalled than those that elicited no fear, and there was also evidence of proactive interference from fear‐inducing advertisements on programme recall. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.     

The Effect of Sexual Programme Content on the Recall of Foreign Sexual and Non‐sexual Advertisements

This study explored the effect of programme content (sexual and non‐sexual) on the recall of sexual and non‐sexual advertisements. Seventy‐eight participants were allocated randomly to four different groups and viewed either a sexual or non‐sexual programme with either sexual or non‐sexual advertisements placed within. Free recall and cued recall of the advertisements were assessed. The sexual content of programmes impaired advertisement recall, for both free recall and cued recall. Furthermore, advertisements that were of a sexual nature were remembered better than neutral advertisements. There was also an interaction between advertisement type and gender; women remembered more sexual than non‐sexual advertisements, but this was not the case for men. Finally, there was an interaction between programme type and gender, with a marked tendency for men to recall fewer advertisements embedded in the sexual programme than women. Limitations and implications of this research are discussed.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does sex sell? The effect of sexual programme content on the recall of sexual and non-sexual advertisements

This study looked at the recall of sexual and non‐sexual television advertisements embedded within programmes, with or without, sexual content. It was predicted that there would be a detrimental effect of sexual programme content, and a beneficial effect of sexual advertisement content on ability to recall advertisements. Further, when programme and advertisement content were congruous (i.e. both sexual), this also would hinder recall. Participants aged between 18 and 31 were placed in one of four conditions and were shown either ‘Sex and the City’ (sexual programme) or ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ (non‐sexual programme) with sexual or non‐sexual advertisements embedded in each. Participants were then asked to recall advertisement details from the advertisements. The results indicated that there was a main effect of programme type, demonstrating that sexual programme content hindered recall of advertisements. However, there was no main effect of the type of advertisements seen (sexual or non‐sexual) on recall, nor was there a negative effect on recall when programme and advertisement content were congruous. An interaction between advertisements and sex of participants showed that males recalled sexual advertisements better and females recalled non‐sexual advertisements better. Limitations of the study are considered. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Selective exposure to television programmes and advertising effectiveness

This study focused on the influence of selective exposure within an experiment designed to investigate context effects on advertising effectiveness. In a semi‐natural viewing environment, 86 participants chose one of four television programmes to view. The programmes belonged to diverse genres: news and current affairs, light entertainment, sport, and action‐adventure. Each programme was interrupted by two commercial breaks containing unfamiliar advertisements for familiar product types. Self‐rated involvement, entertainment, and enjoyment of programmes correlated positively with subsequent measures of memory for and responses to the advertisements. The results support the hypothesis that the operation of selective exposure within an experimental situation may result in positive relationships between predictor variables and measures of advertisement effectiveness. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of Prolonged Exposure to Gratuitous Media Violence on Provoked and Unprovoked Hostile Behavior1

On 4 consecutive days, respondents were exposed to gratuitously violent or nonviolent intact feature films. They rated the entertainment value of these films. One day after exposure to the last film of the series, respondents participated in ostensibly unrelated research on emotion recognition. As they performed a test, they were neutrally or abusively treated by a research assistant. Thereafter, they were put in a position to harm this assistant. Both provocation and exposure to violent films were found to foster markedly increased hostile behavior. These effects were noninteractive. Moreover, these effects were uniform for respondent gender. Compared to men, women exhibited less hostility overall, however. The findings thus show that prolonged exposure to gratuitously violent films is capable (a) of escalating hostile behavior in provoked men and women, and (b) perhaps more importantly, of instigating such behavior in unprovoked men and women.     

Television violence and children's aggression: testing the priming, social script, and disinhibition predictions

The effect of television violence on boys' aggression was investigated with consideration of teacher-rated characteristic aggressiveness, timing of frustration, and violence-related cues as moderators. Boys in Grades 2 and 3 (N = 396) watched violent or nonviolent TV in groups of 6, and half the groups were later exposed to a cue associated with the violent TV program. They were frustrated either before or after TV viewing. Aggression was measured by naturalistic observation during a game of floor hockey. Groups containing more characteristically high-aggressive boys showed higher aggression following violent TV plus the cue than following violent TV alone, which in turn produced more aggression than did the nonviolent TV condition. There was evidence that both the violent content and the cue may have suppressed aggression among groups composed primarily of boys low in characteristic aggressiveness. Results were interpreted in terms of current information-processing theories of media effects on aggression.     

Cross-Cultural Sexism and the Effectiveness of Gender (Non)Traditional Advertising: A Comparison of Purchase Intentions in Poland,South Africa,and the United Kingdom

Findings regarding the effectiveness of (non)traditionally gendered advertisements are mixed and largely emanate from the United States. We tested the stereotype content model and ambivalent sexism theory cross-nationally in an advertising context and predicted that paternalistic (vs. envious) female stereotypes will trigger higher purchase intent (PI) irrespective of country (Hypothesis 1), viewers’ benevolent sexism will positively predict PI for paternalistic housewife advertisements (Hypothesis 2a), viewers’ hostile sexism will negatively predict PI for envious businesswoman advertisements (Hypothesis 2b), and these relationships with sexism will be confined to less gender egalitarian countries (i.e., Poland and South Africa) (Hypothesis 3). Statistical analyses of data from 468 Polish, South African, and British university students supported Hypothesis 1 and partially supported Hypotheses 2 and 3. The predicted patterns held for South Africa, but in Poland, viewers’ benevolence positively predicted PI for both advertisement types, with the exception of highly hostile women. British viewers’ hostility positively predicted PI for the housewife advertisement. Our findings support the cross-cultural applicability of the stereotype content model to advertising and suggest that the predictive role of sexism changes depending on its type, advertisement type, country, and gender. We recommend that advertisers should adopt a nuanced approach in predicting the effectiveness of gendered advertisements.     

The effects of commercial interruption of violent and nonviolent films on viewers' subsequent aggression

Aggressive responses following the viewing of violent and nonviolent films were studied. Groups of subjects saw one of three full-length films: (1) a staged violent film, (2) a realistic violent film, or (3) a nonviolent film. For half of the groups of subjects, films were interrupted periodically by sets of commercials. Results confirmed predictions that aggressive responses will be greater after viewing aggressive films than nonaggressive films, and that aggressive responses will be greater if films are interrupted by commercials than when not interrupted. A hypothesis predicting an interaction such that aggressive responses will be maximal when violent films are interrupted by commercials was supported. No differences in aggressiveness following presentation of realistic and staged violent films were found.     

Children and television advertising: when do they understand persuasive intent?

Children's response to television advertising is investigated in this paper. Children aged between six and ten years were tested for their recall, recognition and understanding of novel television advertisements. Children were able to recognise scenes from the advertisements after one exposure but recall of the brand names was poor for the younger children, even after three exposures. Recall for the advertising content increased by age and number of exposures. None of the six‐year‐olds and only a quarter of the eight‐year‐olds and a third of the ten‐year‐olds discussed advertising in terms of persuasion. Therefore, although children remember television advertisements, their purpose is not fully understood, even by many ten‐year‐olds. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.