Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 A Framework for Conceptualizing and Measuring the Involvement Construct in Advertising Research J Craig Andrews Srinivas Durvasula Syed H Akhter Adequately conceptualizing and measuring the involvement construct has been one of the most controoersial topics in advertising research This task is especially important given the many involvement-driven frameworks (e.g., the elaboration likelihood model) now being advanced in advertising The present study proposes a framework that closely scrutinizes the inoolvement constructs antecedents, state properties, measures, potential confounds, and consequences Four emerging research streams in involvement are presented in the context of the framework Implications for researchers attempting to manipulate and measure inoolvement in experimental advertising research are provided J Craig Andrews The conceptualization and measurement of involvement has long been an important and controversial topic for advertising researchers It is especially important because of the recent advancement and testing of many involvementdriven models in advertising, such as the elaboration likelihood model (Petty and Cacioppo 1981a; 1983; 1986), the attitude-toward-the-ad model (Lutz 1985; Mitchell, and Olson 1981; Shimp 1981), and the integrated information response model (Smith and Swinyard 1982; 1983) However, involvement is also controversial due to the many different proposals and ideas for conceptualizing (cf., Andrews 19BB; Antil 1984; Cohen 1983; Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo 1978, 19B5; Greenwald and Leavitt 1984; Houston and Rothschild 1978; Krugman 1966-1967; Lastovicka and Gardner 1979; Mitchell 1979, 1981; Park and Young 1986; Wright 1973, 1974; Zaichkowsky 1986) and measuring the involvement construct (cf., Bloch 1981; Celsi and Olson 19BB; Laczniak, Muehling, and Grossbart 1989; Laurent and Kapferer 1985; Wells 19B6; Zaichkowsky 1985) There have been noteworthy attempts to reconcile these differences by separately examining: involvement models (e.g., Mitchell 19B1; Zaichkowsky 19B6), involvement state properties (e.g., Cohen 1983; Mitchell 1981), empirical examples of involvement manipulations (e.g., Laczniak, Muehling, and Grossbart 1989), and illustrations of the operationalization of advertising involvement (e.g., Andrews 1988) However, what is really needed is a comprehensive, detailed, and operational framework that helps integrate these separate involvement issues by clearly examining the underlying properties of the involvement construct, and that separates the construct from its many antecedents, consequences, and potential confounding or related constructs A clarification of this nature would be of value to advertising researchers seeking to conceptualize, manipulate, and measure involvement in their own research Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a framework that closely scrutinizes the involvement construct's antecedents, state properties, measures, related constructs, and consequences The framework's relationship to four emerging streams of research in involvement is then presented to help reconcile the many proposals and ideas for conceptualizing and measuring involvement Implications for those attempting to manipulate and/or measure involvement in (Ph.D., University of South Carolina) is assistant professor of marketing, Marquette University Srinivas Durvasula (Ph.D., University of South Carolina) is assistant professor of marketing, Marquette University Syed H Akhter (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma) is assistant professor of marketing, Marquette University The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful comments and suggestions by Terence A Shimp on an earlier version of the manuscript ©}oumal of Advertising Volume 19, Number 4, Page 27-40 experimental advertising research are also provided Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 The Framework A necessary condition for adequately measuring a construct is to first precisely specify the domain of the construct As suggested by Churchill (1979), "The researcher must be exacting in delineating what is included in the definition and what is excluded" (p 67) Unfortunately, in the case of involvement, many researchers have not defined the domain of the construct, nor provided manipulation checks in experimentation with involvement The position taken in this paper is that involvement is an individual, internal state of arousal with intensity, direction, and persistence properties (Note: For those interested in the conceptualization of involvement as a process, see Greenwald and Leavitt 1984.) The focus of involvement is on the individual consumer That is, it is the individual consumer who is involved, not products, or advertising content, media, objects, or situations The consumer's internal state of arousal determines how he/she responds to stimuli, such as advertisements or products (Note: While some authors [ef., Mitchell 1981] have defined involvement in the context of motivational properties evoked by a particular stimulus or situation, our definition focuses on individual arousal levels with respect to stimuli.) This internal state of arousal, activation, or preparedness can be separated from its numerous antecedents and consequences as depicted in our framework in Figure The framework provides a nomological network of relationships among involvement antecedents, state properties, related constructs, and consequences (A "nomological network" refers to the predicted pattern of theoretical relationships that helps define a construct; Cook and Campbell 1979, p 70.) It is apparent that the primary problem in defining the domain of the involvement construct is that numerous antecedents and consequences of involvement have been confused with involvement 28 per se For example, it would be a precarious assumption to treat cognitiveresponse activity as an indicant (v consequence) of the state of involvement The reasoning is that cognitive-response generation can be the result of a multitude of factors beyond one's level of involvement, including one's accessibility of thoughts, response opportunity, general verbosity, and personality traits (Wright 1980) Furthermore, as suggested by Cohen (1983), if cognitive responses were synonymous with the involvement construct, there would be no need for such a construct Care should also be taken not to define involvement as risk or familiarity (antecedents/related constructs), or to label involvement as "cognitive involvement," "emotional involvement," or "behavioral involvement" (consequences) In summary, it would be inappropriate to conclude that the state of involvement can be inferred by the virtue of measuring involvement antecedents or consequences Rather, measures attempting to tap the state (v antecedents or consequences) of involvement are preferable For example, in an experiment manipulating involvement in a particular advertisement, manipulation checks can be included to measure the intensity or degree to which an individual felt he/ she was engaged in, engrossed in, absorbed by, paid attention to, concentrated on, carefully examined, thought about, focused on, or was involved in the particular advertisement in question A closer examination of Figure reveals numerous antecedents to involvement grouped into personal and situational/decision factors For example, studies by Petty and Cacioppo (1986) have manipulated the personal relevance of advertised products and measured differing levels of a person's need for cognition These factors can serve to drive one's involvement toward an advertised product or issue at hand Furthermore, factors such as one's opportunity to process (e.g., due to distraction, media type, etc.) and ability to process (e.g., due to product knowledge, familiarity, etc.) can serve to limit or constrain the impact of these involvement antecedents on the involvement state (cf., Andrews 1988; Batra and Ray 1986) Numerous consequences of manipulated involvement levels have also been determined, including a greater number of total and directed cognitive responses (Park and Young 1986; Petty and Cacioppo 1979), more elaborate and complex encoding strategies (Celsi and Olson 1988), significant effects on recall and recognition measures (Leigh and Menon 1987), and persuasion that is more enduring, predictive of behavior, and resistant to counter-propaganda (Petty and Cacioppo 1986) The position taken in this paper is that involvement is an individual, internal state of arousal with intensity, direction, and persistence properties As an internal state of arousal, involvement has three major properties: intensity, direction, and persistence (cf., Bettman's 1979 motivational mechanisms; Shimp 1982) While these involvement properties are grounded in motivation, we feel that motivation represents a broader construct than involvement As such, motivation refers to forces/drives ("motivational properties"-Mitchell 1981; "motivational aspects"-Cohen 1983) that move one from an initial state to a desired state (Bettman 1979) These forces/drives help direct arousal or activation levels toward stimuli, and play an important role in facilitating involvement-related outcomes or consequences (e.g., message-oriented thoughts; message-argument recall; Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983; Wright 1973) FIGURE A Framework for the Conceptualization and Measurement of the Involvement Construct Antecedents: Consequences: a Personal needs, goals and char- a Search behavior • increased search and shopping behavior • increased complexity of decision process • greater time spent examining alternatives • greater perceived product attribute differences Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 acteristics • personal goals, values, and consequences • cultural values • degree to which the object has ego-related significance • personal relevance of the object • importance of the object • personality factors (e.g., need for cognition) b Situational and decision factors • purchase occasion • object usage • perceived risk of decision • size of decision consequences • imminence of decision • degree of decision irrevocabUity • degree of personal responsibility associated with decision j- I I I Related Constructs: • opportunity to process (e.g., distraction, media type) • ability to process (e.g., knowledge, famUiarity) J I I J I Involvement: • intensity • direction • persistence b Information PTocessing • increased total and directed cognitive-response activity • greater number of personal connections • more elaborate encoding strategies • increased recall and comprehension c Persuasion • if present with cogent arguments, greater central (v peripheral) attitude change • attitude change that is more enduring, predictive of behavior, and resistant to counter persuasion NOTE: Solid arrows represent direct influences, while the double-ruled arrow represents a mediating influence By involvement intensity, we mean the degree of arousal or the preparedness of the involved consumer with respect to the goal-related object That is, the involved consumer has a certain degree of arousal to engage in specific information-processing or goal-related behaviors However, intensity refers to the arousal level and not the actual processing or behaviors that remain as consequences of involvement This intensity level should also be thought of as operating on a continuum, as opposed to "high" or "low" levels of involvement This is an important distinction since "moderate" levels of involvement have all but been ignored in experimental research A notable exception, however, is based on a stream of research on source effects in persuasion (Heesacker, Petty, and Caciop- po 1983; Puckett, Petty, Cacioppo, and Fisher 1983).As suggested by Petty and Cacioppo (1986), source (and peripheral) factors can influence the extent of message processing when the personal relevance of a message is moderate or ambiguous The direction of involvement refers to the target of the involvement intensity level That is, direction refers to the stimulus (e.g., issue, product, advertisement) toward which the arousal is channeled (cf., Mitchell 1981) This definition differs from the previous use of direction to refer to the amount of cognitive and behavioral activity related to the stimulus or goal-object (ef., Bettman 1979; Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo 1978; Park and Young 1986) The rationale is that cognitive and behavioral activity remains a consequence (as opposed to an indicator) of the state of involvement The antecedent conditions of involvement (e.g., purchase occasions, personal relevance, risk, etc.) will first help determine the consumer's involvement direction or goal-object selected For example, in an experiment heightening subjects' perceived relevance of an ad's message content, the direction of their involvement should be toward the content of the ad and not toward background cues found in the ad This can be checked by a measure of their relative concentration on ad content versus background cues (e.g., endorsers, music, colors) in the ad (Wright 1973, p 57) Involvement persistence refers to the duration of the involvement intensity Depending upon the different categories of involvement, there will no 29 Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 doubt be varying persistence levels For example, long-time car enthusiasts, health "nuts:' wine connoisseurs, or ski "bums" would be expected to be higher in involvement persistence than those under situational involvement states (cf., Bloch 1981; Celsi and Olson 1988) The recognition of enduring involvement is important because the focus of work on involvement conceptualizations may be limited to involvement definitions that are situational or transitory in nature While the involvement levels in the preceding examples endure over time, the level of persistence for situational involvement is expected to decline when the ultimate goal is achieved, or when the situation changes (Celsi and Olson 1988) With situational involvement, this level of persistence is also expected to be greater for high- versus low-involvement subjects In particular, persuasive effects (e.g., attitude changes, attitudebehavioral intention correlations) are predicted to be more persistent under high versus low involvement (Petty and Cacioppo 1986, pp, 175-178) For example, brand beliefs were found to influence brand attitudes for highinvolvement subjects on both immediate and delayed measures (Muehling and Lacmiak 1988) Under low involvement, however, these effects did not occur Given these properties, antecedents, and consequences of involvement, we now turn our attention to the relationship of our framework to previous involvement conceptualizations and measures grouped on the basis of four emerging streams of research in involvement Conceptual and Measurement Issues: Four Research Streams Conceptual Issues Given the importance of involvement as an integral moderating condition in advertising research, it is somewhat disconcerting to see numerous, conflicting conceptual and operational definitions of the involvement construct However, this frustrating situation is not as hopeless 30 as it first appears, in that some underlying commonalities can be observed For example, we have identified four major groupings of involvement conceptualizations and have labeled these as: (1) attention/processing strategies, (2) personal/situational involvement, (3) audience/process involvement, and (4) enduring/product involvement These four research streams are directly related to our framework in that the attention/processing strategies field has contributed to the examination of the state of involvement (e.g., involvement intensity and direction), the personal/ situational and enduring/product involvement streams have contributed to the manipulation and/or measurement of involvement antecedents, while the audience/process involvement stream has advanced our knowledge of the consequences of involvement (e.g., cognitive responses, message-argument recall) that require varying levels of attentional capacity Table provides a chronological sample of conceptual definitions of involvement categorized and grouped on the basis of the four research streams The rationale for the involvement definition groupings is as follows Studies included under attention/processing strategies have proposed involvement conceptualizations accounting for both the level of attention and the direction of processing (e.g., brand v non-brand processing; cf., Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo 1978) That is, attention and processing are viewed as critical stages in information acquisition, influenced by the level and direction of involvement (Mitchell 1981) For example, under high involvement, individuals are expected to devote all attention to the advertisement and execute a brandprocessing strategy Under low involvement, individuals either not allocate attention to the advertisement or they invoke a non-brand-processing strategy Research definitions examining Mitchell's (1979; 1981)extension of this field, expressing involvement as a state (v process) construct, are also included in this category (e.g., Andrews 1988; Cohen 1983; Lacmiak, Muehling, and Grossbart 1989) An important dis- tinction should be made, however, between attention/processing strategies and audience/process involvement (e.g., Greenwald and Leavitt 1984; Krugman 1966-1967) As Mitchell (1981, p 27) indicates: Krugman defines involvement as one of the dimensions of the' type of processing that occurs during exposure to the advertisement In contrast, I define involvement as a particular state of the individual at a point in time Our state variable conceptualization of involvement affects the type of processing that occurs during exposure Similarly, Greenwald and Leavitt (1984, p 590) indicate that: "Mitchell's (1979) interpretation of involvement in terms of varying arousal appears to fit least well with our analysis." This is because Greenwald and Leavitt (1984) view involvement as a process represented by four process-involvement levels (i.e., preattention, focal attention, comprehension, and elaboration), each requiring greater attentional capacity In contrast, Mitchell's (1979; 1981) involvement state serves to influence (as opposed to represent) these process stages or levels The second research stream, personal/situational involvement, represents a collection of involvement definitions based on the idea that issues, situations, or messages can have significant consequences on, or be personally relevant to, one's own life (Apsler and Sears 1968) Recent research regarding the personal/situational-involvement field is extensive (cf., Petty and Cacioppo 1981b; 1986; Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983) and makes use of personal relevance (and other) manipulations to induce varying levels of involvement and subsequent persuasion While the attention/processing-strategies field has contributed to our understanding of involvement-state properties, personal/ situational-involvement research has advanced our knowledge regarding the role of antecedents (e.g., personal relevance, need for cognition, personal responsibility, etc.) in involvement-induced persuasion Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 TABLE Conceptual Definitions of Involvement Study Focus A AttentionfProcessing Strategies Definition Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo (1978) advertising high-inllolliement learning (brand set): the interest in the product category is high and the consumer is actively processing the information in the advertisement to reach an overall evaluation of the advertised brand (p 584) low-inllOlliement learning (nonbrand set): a) strategy-limited: the person processes the advertisement with other than a (brand) evaluation strategy A trace of the advertisement is stored in episodic memory (p 584) b) attention-limited: the advertisement does not receive enough attention for it to be fully perceived or evaluated (p 584) Mitchell (1979, p 194; 1981, p 25) stimulus An individual level, internal state variable that indicates the amount of arousal, interest, or drive evoked by a particular stimulus or situation Involvement, therefore, has two dimensions, intensity and direction (p 194) Cohen (1983) stimulus A state of activation directed toward some portion of the person's psychological field (p 326) Andrews (1988) message An individual, internal state of arousal with intensity and direction properties (p 24) Laczniak, Muehling, and Grossbart (1989) advertising The motivational state of an individual induced by a particular stimulus or situation (p 30) B Personal/Situational Involvement Sherif and Cantril (1947) object ego-inllOlliement: when any stimulus or situation is consciously or uncon- sciously related to [the contents of the ego] by the individual (p 117) Zimbardo (1960) response response inllOlliement: the individual's concern with the consequences of his/ her response or with the instrumental meaning of his/her opinion (p 87) Apsler and Sears (1968) issue personal inllolliement: the expectation of an issue to have significant consequences for an individual's own life (p 162) Wright (1973) advertising content-processing inllolliement: when a person is confronted by an advertisement which he/she perceives as particularly relevant to an impending decision (p 55) Houston and Rothschild (1978) situational situational inllOlliement: the ability of a situation to elicit from individuals concern for their behavior in that situation (p 184) Petty and Cacioppo (1981b) message, issue In high-inllOlliement situations, the persuasive message under consideration has a high degree of personal relevance to the recipient, whereas in lowinllolliement situations, the personal relevance of the message is rather trivial (p.20) Burnkrant and Sawyer (1983) message A motivational state based on the message receiver's need for information and the meaningfulness of the message content (pp 57-58) Celsi and Olson (1988) situation situational sources of personal releeance (SSPR): a wide variety of specific stimuli, cues, and contingencies in a consumer's immediate environment that activate or are closely associated with self-relevant consequences, goals and values (pp 211-212) C Audience/Process Involvement Krugman (1966-1967) advertising adlieTtising inllOlliement: the number of "connections," conscious bridging experiences, or personal references per minute, that the subject makes between the content of the persuasive stimulus and the content of his/her own life (p 584) Houston and Rothschild (1978) response response inllOlliement: the complexity or extensiveness of cognitive and behavioral processes characterizing the overall consumer decision process It is the result of situational and enduring involvement (p 185) Table continued 31 Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 TABLE (Continued) Conceptual Definitions of Involvement Study Focus Definition Leavitt, Greenwald, and Obermiller (1981) processing high inlloillement: The interpretations of high involvement as cognitive responding or as establishing personal connections are grouped together as variations on the theme of encoding elaboration (p 17) low inllOlliement: "we are inclined to identify low involvement with the achievement of focal attention, accompanied by minimal encoding" (p 17) Batra and Ray (1983) message message-response inllOlliement: a situational state measured or calibrated by the depth and quality of message-evoked cognitive responses (p 309) Greenwald and Leavitt (1984) audience audience inllOlliement: the allocation of attentional capacity to a message source, as needed to analyze the message at one of a series of increasingly abstract representational levels (p 591) Park and Young (1986) information processing cognitille inllOlliement: the degree of personal relevance of message contents or issue based on the brand's functional performance (utilitarian motive) (p.12) ajfectille inllOlliement: the degree of personal relevance of a message based on emotional or aesthetic appeals to one's motive to express an actual or ideal self-image to the outside world (value-expressive motive) (p 12) low inllOlliement: a lack of focused mental processing in evaluating a message (p 14) Baker and Lutz (1987) advertising adllertising-message inllOlliement: a motivational construct embodying the amount of cognitive effort directed by the consumer at processing the contents of an advertising message (p 75) adllertising-execution inllOlliement: a motivational construct embodying the degree of cognitive effort directed by the consumer at processing the executional properties of an advertising stimulus without regard to their brand relatedness (p 80) Leigh and Menon (1987) audience audience inlloillement: "the level of attention and depth of processing (i.e., focus on sensory versus semantic features) should serve to define the level of audience involvement." (pA) D Enduring/Product Involvement Day (1970) object The general level of interest in the object or the centrality of the object to the person's own ego-structure (p 45) Bowen and Chaffee (1974) product class product inlloillement: a direct outgrowth of the potential benefits or rewards the product holds for the consumer (p 615) Houston and Rothschild (1978) individual and situation enduring inlloillement: reflects the strength of the pre-existing relationship between an individual and the situation in which the behavior will occur (p 184) Lastovicka and Gardner (1979) product class Involvement is best thought of in terms of two underlying components: a) norrnzmve importance: how connected or engaged a product class is to an individual's values (p 68) b) commitment: the pledging of binding of an individual to his/her brand choice (p 68) Bloch (1981) product class product inllOlliement: a construct which affects consumer behavior on an ongoing basis (p 62) Zaichkowsky (1985) object (i.e., product class, advertisements, purchase decisions) A person's perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests (p 342) Celsi and Olson (1988) individual knowledge and experience intrinsic sources of personal relevsnce (ISPR): are relatively stable, enduring structures of personally relevant knowledge, derived from past experience and stored in memory (p 212) 32 Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 A primary element in the audience/ process-involvement stream of research is the notion of audience involvement As defined by Greenwald and Leavitt (1984, p 591), " audience involvement is the allocation of attentional capacity to a message source, as needed to analyze the message at one of a series of increasingly abstract representation levels." These increasingly abstract and complex representations are viewed as levels of involvement in this research stream The idea is that low-involvement levels (e.g., preattention, focal attention) use little capacity, while higher levels of involvement (e.g., comprehension, elaboration) require greater capacity Therefore, research proposing definitions of involvement as a threestage processing sequence (Leavitt, Greenwald, and Obermiller 1981), or as a four-level process (Greenwald and Leavitt 1984), is included in the audience/process-involvement research stream Studies defining involvement in processing terminology, such as cognitive responses, connections, cognitive effort, or cognitive and affective needs (e.g., Baker and Lutz 1987; Batra and Ray 1983; Krugman 1966-1967; and Park and Young 1986) have also been included in this research stream "Connections" and other cognitive activity generated from advertising differ from the "personal relevance of advertising information" in that personal relevance (e.g., due to a planned purchase) can lead to a higher state of involvement, and subsequently, to a greater number of "connections" and increased cognitive-response activity As indicated by Krugman (1966-1967, pp 587-589), "connections" represent the number of actual thoughts/references per minute that relate advertising information to a person's own life These "connections" (as an involvement consequence) should be more prevalent when the information in the ad is personally relevant (an involvement antecedent) Finally, the product-involvement field (e.g., Bloch 1981; Bowen and Chaffee 1974; Day 1970; Zaichkowsky 1985)has been integrated with enduring involvement (Celsi and Olson 1988; Houston and Rothschild 1978) because the preexisting experience and knowledgestructure terminology found in enduring-involvement definitions also plays an important role in product-involvement conceptualizaitons (ef., Bloch 1981) In this research stream, individuals are viewed as having relatively stable and enduring involvement levels with a particular stimulus (e.g., a product class) This notion differs from other definitions of involvement (e.g., attention/processing strategies; personal/situational involvement) that view involvement as situationally-spectfic or transitory in nature the primary problem in defining the domain of the involvement construct is that numerous antecedents and consequences of involvement have been confused with involvement per se Table provides a summary examination and comparison of each involvement research stream on the basis of its origin, evolution, theoretical basis, primary focus, state versus process, dimensionality, and primary contribution and relationships to our proposed framework presented in Figure Interestingly, several commonalities emerge from the comparisons, especially in the examination of the theoretical bases for the streams For example, Kahneman's (1973) theory of attention (with his arousal and capacity dimensions), and Greenwald's (1968) cognitive-response theory play important roles in both attention/processing strategies and audience/process-involvement research streams, even though the streams differ with respect to their state v process orientation Also, the enduring/productinvolvement field has relied upon the other three streams for its theoreticai development (e.g., its major theoretical work includes Greenwald and Leavitt 1984; Mitchell 1979; Petty and Cacioppo 1981a; and Sherif and Cantril 1947; ef., Celsi and Olson 1988; Zaichkowsky 1985) However, most commonalities end here, leaving clear differences across the streams on their primary focus, contribution and relationship to our framework (see Table 2) Measurement Issues Perhaps more troublesome is the review of involvement measures that have been developed and applied in advertising and consumer research Table provides a sample of these measures, incorporating two perspectives: measurement scales and manipulation checks These measures have also been organized around the four streams of research in involvement The enduring/productinvolvement stream accounts for most involvement measurement scales listed, while contributions from the other three streams are found in the sample of involvement manipulation checks Measurement scales An examination of measurement scales in Table reveals that the product-involvementscale approaches are quite diverse, ranging from ingenious methods to tap product interest (Buchanan 1964), to the use of "proxy" measures to infer product involvement (Bowen and Chaffee 1974; Tyebjee 1979), to scales employing rigorous procedures suggested by Churchill (1979) in developing, purifying, and validating scales (cf., Bloch 1981; Zaichkowsky 1985) The latter validation attempts are preferred in order to have better confidence in the degree to which our measures assess the involvement construct However, the validation of multi-item scales of product involvement is not without its problems For example, the construction of general measures of product involvement (e.g., Zaichkowsky's 1985 PIl) aid in the generalizability of such scales across product categories 33 TABLE A Comparison of Four Research Streams In Involvement Research Streams Audience/Process Enduring/Product Involvement InllOlvement Sherif and Cantril (1947) Krugman (19661967); Leavitt, Greenwald, and Obermiller (1981)-3 processing sequences Product: Day (1970) Enduring: Houston and Rothschild (1978) Mitchell (1979; 1981); Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo (1985); Lacmiak, Muehling, and Grossbart (1989) Apsler and Sears (1968); Petty and Cacioppo (1981a; 1986) Greenwald and Leavitt (1984; Bloch 1985)-4 levels of involvement Product: Bloch (1981); Zaichkowsky (1985) Enduring: Celsi and Olson (1988) Theoretical Basis: HI: Wright (1973) Greenwald (1968) Atten Ltd LI: Kahneman (1973) Strategy Ltd LI: Tulving (1972) Social Judgment Theory; Elaboration Likelihood Model Attention: Kahneman (1973) Levels of Processing: Craik and Lockhart (1972) Cognitive Response Theory: Greenwald (1968) Info Processing Stages: McGuire 1969) Product: Greenwald and Leavitt (1984; Mitchell (1979); Petty and Cacioppo (1981a) Enduring: Sherif and Cantril (1947) Primary Focus: stimuli within advertising issues, situations, advertising message content processing stages, audience involvement product-class relevance, the individual State vs, Process: state state process state measures (e.g., Zaichkowsky's 1985 Dimensionality: Bi-dimensional: Level of attention, direction of processing Unidimensional: individual's level of personal relevance with message- or Issue-related information Unidimensional: increasing capacity required for increasingly complex representations Primarily a unidimensional intent (Bloch 1981; Zaichkowsky 1985), however some are bi-dimensional (Lastovicka and Gardner 1979) Primary contribution and relationship to our framework (Figure 1): involvement state involvement antecedents (e.g., personal relevance, need for cognition, personal responsibility) involvement consequences requiring different attentional capacities involvement antecedents Distinguishing Attention/Processing Strategies Personal/Situational Involvement Origin: Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo (1978) Evolution: Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 Characteristics PII) (v product-specific scales, e.g., Bloch 1981) Recently, however, questions have arisen regarding the unidimensionality of such general product-involvement measures (cf., McQuarrie and Munson 1987; Mittal 1989; Zaichkowsky 1987) This is due, in part, to the problem of separating affect from product involvement in such measures Other problems arise when involvement antecedents (e.g., risk) or con- 34 sequences (e.g., consumption behavior) are measured as product involvement Rather, the construction of multiple items with slightly different shades of meaning of involvement (e.g., _ means a lot to me; is important to me) may be preferable in the development of product-involvement measurement scales Perhaps the most challenging task for advertising researchers developing involvement- measurement scales is to maintain the correspondence between the intended domain of the involvement construct and the subsequent generation of sample items from this domain Manipulation checks Advertising researchers manipulating the involvement construct face the difficult task of developing involvement manipulation checks that successfully tap the TABLE Involvement Measures in Advertising and Consumer Research Study Scale Focus Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 A Measurement Scales: EnduringjProduct Involvement Buchanan (1964) (see also Zinkhan and Fornell 1989) product interest A product-interest scale is developed based on the respondent's relative preferences for seeing short films about the products in question Consumers are asked to indicate (out of a balanced triad of product film titles) which product film they are most likely to view (2 points) and which they are least likely to view (0 points; point for the product not mentioned) Each product is presented four times, for a possible range of a to for a given product Bowen and Chaffee (1974) product class Seven measures of product involvement: • number of brands • styling differences • product performance • price • importance of purchase • dealer brand specialization • substitutability of brands Tyebjee (1979) product class Vaughn (1980; 1986) product class Seven measures of product involvement: • average weekly consumption • perceived product differentiation • perceived image differentiation • self-reported knowledgeability • interest in product information • endorsement/attitude toward using product • brand awareness Two dimensions: product categori:tation • importance of decision • risk of choosing wrong brand • thought required in decision think/feel dimension • logical/objective decision • decision based on functional facts • decision based on feeling • decision expresses personality • decision not based on senses Bloch (1981) product class 17-item, product involvement scale for car enthusiasts Laurent and Kapferer (1985) product class Zaichkowsky (1985; 1987) product class (advertising, purchase decision) 19-item, consumer-involvement profile tapping: • product importance • risk importance • risk probability • pleasure • sign value 20-item bipolar adjective scale Wells (1986) advertising domain of the involvement category manipulated in the study The challenge facing researchers manipulating involvement in advertising is to provide rigorously developed manipulation checks following accepted la-item R (relevance) scale psychometric procedures (cf., Churchill 1979; Gerbing and Anderson 1988; Perdue and Summers 1986; Peter 1981) As indicated in Table 3, the manipulation checks vary greatly, although commonalities can be detected within Table continued each research stream For example, attention/processing strategies assess both intensity and direction (i.e., brand v non-brand processing) properties of the state of involvement (Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo 1978; Laczniak, 35 TABLE (Continued) Involvement Measures in Advertising and Consumer Research Study Focus Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 B Manipulation Cheeks Attention/processing Strategies Gardner, Mitchell, and advertising Russo (1978; 1985);Gardner (1985) Lacmiak, Muehling, and Grossbart (1989) advertising message Manipulation Manipulation Checks HI (brand set) Ss were instructed to examine ads as if they were planning a purchase of the product class or brand in the ad LI (non-brand set) Ss were instructed to examine grammatical style in the ad copy to discern its ability to attract attention response times attribute evaluation attention criteria HI Ss were instructed to pay close attention to claims in ads in order to evaluate each brand LI Ss were instructed to pay close attention to overall appearance and writing style of ads 5-item index of message attention (Andrews 1988) • attention to • notice of • concentration on • involved with • thought put into 6-item index of brand and nonbrand processing Personal/Situational Involvement Wright (1973; 1974) advertising HI Ss expected to make a shortrun decision about the product in the ad LI Ss did not expect to make this decision Subjects were asked if they concentrated most on the advertisement or feature story Petty and Cacioppo (1981b) advertising message HI Ss expected the advertised product to soon be introduced in their area They were also asked to evaluate the ad LI Ss expected the advertised product to be introduced in a distant region none reported Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann (1983) advertising message HI Ss were told the advertised brand would soon be test marketed in their city and were told they would soon have to make a choice in the advertised brand's product class LI Ss were told the advertised brand would be test marketed in a distant region and they would have to make a choice in an unrelated product class recall of gift expected Celsi and Olson (1988) felt involvement: ad message (SSPR) and product class (ISPR) SSPR: Measured the influence of SSPR, ISPR (as measured by Zaichkowsky's 1985 PIl) on felt intlOlvement (a 2-item measure of ad importance and ad linkage with needs, cf., Wells 1986) 36 a) HI Ss were told to look at ads as if they were seeing them in a magazine at home However, they were to make a choice in the advertised product category for use in a lottery b) Baseline Ss were told only to look at ads as if they were seeing them in a magazine at home Table continued Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 TABLE (Continued) Involvement Measures in Advertising and Consumer Research Study Focus Manipulation Manipulation Checks Andrews and Shimp (1990); Andrews and Durvasula (forthcoming) advertising message HI Ss expected: the advertised brand to be test marketed in their city, a gift choice in the advertised brand's product category, and the possibility of an interview to determine if they read the ad claims Z LI Ss expected: the advertised brand to be test marketed in a distant region, and a product gift choice in an unrelated product class 6-item index of message involvement: • amount of attention • degree of concentration • level of thought • degree of focus • level of effort • extent to which they carefully read the ad Z relative concentration on claims in the ad versus people in the ad Audience/Process Involvement Krugman (1966-67) advertising Manipulated: medium (magazinevs TV), product advertised (airline vs margarine), interest of surrounding editorials (4 different editorials), and instructional set (editorial vs advertising) Number of connections (i.e., recalled thoughts that came to mind when looking at the ad) per ad and per number of seconds looked at the ad Park and Young (1986) information processing: • cognitive involvement • affective involvement • low involvement Cognitive-involvement Ss were asked to watch a commercial as if they were trying to learn about the product's benefits and effectiveness Z Affective-involvement Ss were told to study the commercial as if they were going to purchase the product based on emotion and personal image LI Ss were told to watch the commercial assuming a friend of theirs was seriously ill recall of performance attributes Z Subjects' image-relevant thoughts Subjects' irrelevant thoughts Leigh and Menon (1987) audience involvement Intentional-learning (HI) subjects were told the initial questions were for a baseline measure of memory performance, as they should attempt to memorize the contents of the ad Z Incidental-learning (LI) subjects were initially asked a series of reaction and evaluation questions about an ad and, therefore, did not expect subsequent memory tests percentage of respondents attempting to memorize the ad Z percentage of respondents expecting additional questions to be asked Muehling, and Grossbart 1989) However, the attention/processing strategies field has also used distraction, an opportunity-to-process variable (see Figure I), to induce attention-limited low involvement Therefore, confound checks (cf., Andrews 1988; Perdue and Summers 1986) may be needed to de- termine if subjects' opportunity to process has been inadvertently limited due to distraction in the involvement manipulation While the personal/situational-involvement research stream has provided excellent examples of involvement manipulations through antecedent conditions (e.g., personal rele- vance of advertising content), that stream has also lacked the use of more rigorous measures of attention/processing strategies to determine if, in fact, subjects were more involved in the content of the advertised message Finally, the audience/process-involvement research stream has contributed 37 Downloaded by [University of Arkansas Libraries - Fayetteville] at 19:16 06 March 2015 to the specification of information-processing consequences of involvement levels (e.g., preattention, focal attention, comprehension, and elaboration), each requiring greater attentional capacity Researchers attempting to manipulate and/or measure advertising involvement may gain valuable knowledge from the strengths of the involvement-research streams (i.e., the manipulation of involvement antecedents, measurement of involvement state properties, and assessment of involvement consequences) Implications for Advertising Researchers Several recent theories applied in advertising research (e.g., the attitude-toward-the-ad model; the elaboration likelihood model) have made key theoretical predictions based upon the intensity and direction of one's involvement in an advertised message However, numerous (and sometimes conflicting) conceptual definitions and measures of involvement make it quite difficult for advertising researchers attempting to include this construct in their own research Adding to this difficulty are temptations to simply infer that involvement has been successfully manipulated by examining its effects on dependent measures (e.g., cognitive responses, attitude change) Therefore, the primary objective of this paper was to help provide a sharper focus on the involvement construct by proposing a framework that helped clarify its possible antecedents, consequences, related constructs, and underlying properties (i.e., intensity, direction, and persistence) To assist researchers in comparing involvement definitions, manipulations, and measures, we have organized the many ideas related to involvement into four emerging streams of research: attention/processing strategies, personal/ situational involvement, audience/process involvement, and enduring/product involvement It is hoped that the organization of the involvement definitions within our conceptual framework will increase the accessibility (and 38 comparability) of ideas for future advertising-involvement research As such, our paper extends previous work on advertising involvement (e.g., Laczniak, Muehling, and Grossbart 1989) by providing: (1) a nomological network of relationships among involvement antecedents, involvement consequences, related constructs, and underlying properties of involvement; (2) an examination of intensity, direction, and persistence properties of involvement; and (3)an organization of the numerous involvement definitions, manipulations, and measures based on the four, previously mentioned, streams of research in involvement Further, our synthesis of the research in the enduring/product involvement area should be of particular interest to advertising researchers, because it extends previous advertising involvement work that has focused on situational/transitory definitions of involvement (cf., Laczniak, Muehling, and Grossbart's [1989] Table examples) Perhaps the major implication of our paper for advertising researchers is that we should be careful not to assume or infer that our involvement manipulations have been successful or that our involvement measures are valid Rather, we should consider the following suggestions: Clearly define the domain and focus of the involvement construct studied, including intensity, direction, and persistence properties Develop manipulation-check measures that tap the domain of the involvement construct Make sure to separate the manipulation-check measures from antecedents, consequences, and related constructs of involvement Estimate the dimensionality, reliability, and validity of the manipulation-check measures Report not only results of manipulation checks, but results of confounding checks for advertising involvement, as well With these conceptual and empirical suggestions in mind, our proposed framework can provide a springboard for future advertising research examining different combinations of antecedent conditions (e.g., risk, need for cognition, personal responsibility), involvement state properties (e.g., moderate levels of involvement intensity), related constructs (e.g., ability and opportunity to process), and involvement consequences (e.g., search behavior, persuasion) The study of interrelationships among the research streams within our involvement framework should also be of value to advertising researchers For example, will enduring product involvement have a stronger impact than situational product involvement on measures of the involvement-state properties? How will the manipulation of different personal-relevance antecedents affect the four levels of involvement (i.e., preattention, focal attention, comprehension, and elaboration)? What is the role of related constructs (e.g., ability and opportunity to process) for each research stream in the manipulation and/or measurement of involvement? 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