Self-Schema Matching and Attitude Change:Situational and Dispositional Determinants ofMessage Elaboration

S. CHRISTIAN WHEELERRICHARD E. PETTYGEORGE Y. BIZER*

Research Indicates that messages or products matching individuals' self-schemataare viewed more favorably, but little is known about how or when such effectsoccur. Experiment 1 indicates that messages matched to participants' level ofextroversion lead to larger argument quality effects on attitudes than do mis-matched messages. In experiment 2, these effects are replicated with the self-schema of need for cognition. Across studies, matching messages to recipients'self-schemata leads to increased or decreased persuasion, depending on the ad-vertisement's argument quality. The interaction of self-schema matching with ar-gument quality along with participants' pattern of cognitive responses suggests anelaboration-based account.

K nowledge about one's traits and personality charac-teristics is abundant and can exert considerable influ-

ence on information processing (see Baun:ieister 1998). In-dividuals have beliefs about whether they are outgoing orshy, bellicose or pacifistic, or brave or cowardly, and thesebeliefs shape the attention, encoding, and retrieval of in-formation. Research suggests that self-knowledge is storedin the form of self-schemata, or generalizations about theself gleaned from prior experiences (Markus 1977). Despitethe importance of self-schemata in directing the processingand interpretation of information, relatively little work hasexamined how persuasive appeals can use these schematato maximize persuasion. Thus, although research has ex-amined how appeals to an individual's attitude functions(Snyder and DeBono 1985) or attitude bases (i.e., affectivevs. cognitive; Edwards 1990) can influence recipients' fa-vorability toward attitude objects, work on self-schematahas been limited.

The term "self-schema" refers to the "cognitive gener-

*S. Christian Wheeler is an assistant professor of marketing, 518 MemorialWay, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5015 (wheeler_christian@gsb.stanford.edu). Richard E. Petty is distinguished university professor ofpsychology, 1885 Neil Avenue, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH43210-1222 (petty.l@osu.edu). George Y. Bizer is an assistant professorof psychology, Eastem Illinois University, Charleston, IL 61920 (cfgyb@eiu.edu). This research received financial support from grant BNS 95-20854from the National Science Foundation. The authors thank the 1999-2001Group for Attitudes and Persuasion for their valuable feedback on thisresearch.

alizations about the self . . . that organize and guide theprocessing of self-related information contained in the in-dividual's social experiences" (Markus 1977, 64). Theseschemata reflect the way that individuals articulate their self-characteristics and thitik about themselves. As Markus(1977, 64) put it, "Self-schemata can be viewed as a re-flection of the invariances people have discovered in theirown social behavior." Like other schemata, self-schematahave been conceptualized as organizing structures with pro-cessing implications. That is, self-schemata contain storedknowledge about the self, and they direct attention to in-formation and guide behavior (Markus and Wurf 1987).Because information about one's own personality charac-teristics is abundant, highly elaborated, and highly impor-tant, appeals to self-schemata could prove effective in in-fluencing attitude change.

Prior persuasion experiments on self-schemata have dem-onstrated that matching a message or a product to an indi-vidual's personality characteristics enhances favorable reac-tions. Self-schema matching refers to presenting individualswith a message that appeals or conforms to some aspect ofa person's self-conception. In one early example, Cacioppo,Petty, and Sidera (1982) devised arguments about abortionand capital punishment that were either legalistic (e.g., "Theright to life is one that is constitutionally safeguarded") orreligious (e.g., "There is a sacramental quality to the nattireof Hfe that demands that we show the utmost reverence forit"). People with a legalistic self-schema (i.e., those whowere relatively quick to identify legalistic terms such as

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"shrewd" as self-descriptive) found the legalistic argumentsto be more persuasive, whereas individuals with a religiousself-schema (i.e., those who were relatively quick to idenlifyreligious terms such as "devout" as seK-descriptiveJ foundthe religious arguments to be more persuasive. Thus, .self-schema-matched messages were perceived to be more per-suasive than mismatched messages. Similarly, Aaker (l'J*^f)showed that individtials exhibit a preference for brtinds thatmatch both their own self-schemata and the schemata ap-propriate for different situatiitns. For example, ruggedbrands are preferred b> individuals wlio consider themselvesto be rugged a.s v ell as by individuals who plan to be in arugged setting (e.g.. on acamping irip; see also Sirg> 1982).

Similar effecLs have been obtained by matching aspectsof advertisements to individuals" ethnic or racial identities,although such effects depend on the extent to which theidentity is a central and salient feature of the self-concept.For example, nds in which the sources' or actors' ethnicitiesmatch the recipients' arc viewed more favorably than thosewith mismatching sources, but only when the ethnicity isperceived to be important (e,g,. as the result of being umember of a numeric mini)rity or by being lower in socialstatus: Grier and Deshpande 2(M)|J and i*; a salient aspectof identity i Deshpande and Stayman 1994; Grier and Desh-pande 2001). Hence, matching to demographic features canalso increase persuasion so long as the dimension is salientand self-defining for the person (see also Reed and Forehand2(M)3).

Although studies have provided evidence that sell-schemiimatching can increase attitude favorability. it is less clcnrwhy this effect occurs and whether self-schema matchiniican ever be delrimcntal tn persuasion. Whether a main effectis always to he e.tpected depends an the process by whichself-schemata prtxiuee their impact on persuasion. F'lir ex-ample, if self-schema matching serves as a simple positivecue (e.g.. it fits me, so I like ii"). then matching would heexpected to enhance favorability and wurk especially \\ellin situations in ^\hich the likelihoiid of thinking was li*v\'(Petty and Cacioppo 1986: Petty. Wheeler, and Bizer 2(HM)).By contrast, if self-scliema matching were to increase cog-nitive elaboration, then it should tend to increase persuasionmostly when arguments are strong and compelling buttend to decrease persuasion when arguments are weak andspecious (Petty and Caciuppo I986|. Because most self-schema-matching studies presumably used strong (or nulargument.s in the messages, only the favtirability effectwould be observed, ln fact, other literatures examiningmaiches to factors such as attitude functions also began withmain effect predictions and Hndines and later evolved tomore complex results that were moderated by argumentquality and other variables (for a review, see Peity et al2(.KK)l.

Aside from this surface similarity toother literatures, thereare conceptual reasons to expect that self-schema matchingmight also increase message elaboration. Most notablv. self-schemata, like other organizational cognitive stnjctures. actas perceptual filters, determining which information is im-

portant to selectively attend to and elaborate on and whichinformation Is not (Markus 1977). To the extent that self-schemata serve this hltering role, messages that match aperson's self-schema should be thought about to a greaterextent than messages that tnismatch the schema. These dif-ferences in elaboration could lead to either increased ordecreased favorability depending on the quality of the ar-guments in the message. When the message arguments arecogent, as in prior research, matching should tend to enhancepersuasion because people would be more cognizant of themeriis of the appeal. However, when the message argutnentsare specious, matching should tend to reduce persuasionbecau.se people would be more cognizant of the flaws in themessage.

This article has two primary goals. The first is to examinethe conditions under which self-schema matching increasespersuasion. In doing so. we provide a framework for un-derstanding when the dominant effect of increased persua-sion can be undermined and even reversed. Second, andperhaps more importiint. we provide evidence for a specificmechanism that can underlie the effect of matching onpersuasion.

Two experiments were conducted to isolate the domainand operation of self-schema matching effects, ln experi-ment I. participants read persuasive messages that matchedor mismatched iheir measured level of extroversion(Fysenck. Eysenck. and Barrett 198?). The experiment usedan argument quality manipulation lo test a boundary con-dition for the matching-favorability effect and to examinethe process by which self-schema matching occurs, In ex-periment 2, these effects were replicated with a differentproduct and self-schciiia. In this experiment., the targetedself-schema was need for cognition (NC: Cacioppo, Petty,and Kao 1984), which is a variable that concerns the extentto which individuals enjoy and engage in effortful thoughtin a wide \ariety of situations. Hence, this study tests theL'(Hinterintuiti\e prediction (hal individuals should thinkmore about advertisements appealing to their self-schema,regardless of whether that schema is one fur being a thinkeriir a nonthinker

EXPERIMENT 1

In experiment I, the personality dimension of extrover-sion and introversion was selected as the focus of the self-schema appeal. Hxtroversion-introversion has been postu-lated to arise from differences in activation of the autonomicnervous system; extroverts enjoy social interactions morethan intro\erts because they have higher thresholds for suchactivation and. hence, find social interactions less arousing(Eyscnck 1967). Research on personalit) structure has con-sistently indicated that the extroversion-introversion dimen-sion is a central component i^i personality that accounts fora large amount of \ ariance in personality differences acrossindividuals (e.g.. McCrae and Coski 1987). Extroversion-introversion is a dimension about which individuals canquickly make judgments about others (Ambady and Rosen-thai 1993) with high levels of consensus (Kenny etal. 1994).

SELF-SCHEMA MATCHING AND ATTITUDE CHANGE 789

and there are high levels (if agrecmenl between others' judg-ments and targets* own self-reports concerning extroversion(Watson 1989). Hence, extroversion is a central componentnf personality and one for which nearly al! individuals canmake fast and accurate judgments. Because of these prop-erties, extroversion-introversion seemed like a good dimen-^'nm with which to test the self-schema matching predictions.

The moderator we examined in this experiment wasargument quality. Argument quality is a primary methodfor determining the extent of message elaboration (Pettyand Caciuppo 1986). It was hypothesized that individualsreading messages that matched their self-schemata wouldelaborate more on the persuasive message than individualsreading messages that mismatched their self-schemata. Ac-cordingly, attitudes of individuals in the matched conditionsshould better reflect the quality of the arguments in theme.ssage than attitudes of individuals in the mismatchedconditions. This global pattern would be indicated by aninteraction among message frame, extroversion, and argu-ment quality and is stated formally in the following elab-oration matching hypothesis:

HI: Argument quality will moderate the niatching-favorability effect on attitudes such thiit messagematching will tend to increase differentiaiion be-tween strong and weak arguments relative to mes-sage mismatching.

METHOD

Overview

Participants were told that they would be completing anexperiment that involved the evaluation of different adver-tisements, All experimental materials were prcscriled andcompleted on computers using Medialab software {Jarvis2(X.H3). Participants read two advertisements, The first ad-vertisement was a filler ad. The second advertisement con-tained an introductory paragraph that appealed to either in-troverts or extroverts and contained either strong or weakarguments. After reading each advertisement, participantsreported their attitudes toward the object advertised in themessage and completed a mea.sure of extroversion (Eysencket al. I9H,5). At the conclusion of the experiment, participantswere thanked, debriefed, and dismissed.

Participants

Participants were 126 undergraduate students who re-leKed partial course credit in compensation for their par-ticipation in the experiment.

Procedure

Participants were told that they would be rating a varietyi)f products and services, and all participants read two ad-verti'iements. The tiller advertisement was lor a fictionalmusic club. None of the information in the music ulub ad-

vertisement was related to extroversion or the target adver-tisement. The target advertisement was for a fictional brandof videocassette recorder (VCR). Manipulated within thetarget ad were the message frame (introvert vs. extrovertappeal) and the quality of the arguments (strong vs. weakarguments), The message frame was manipulated in an in-troductory paragraph, and the arguments concerning theproduct attribntes were manipulated in the body of the ad-vertisement text. This construction permitted orthogonal ma-nipulation of message frame and argument quality. The or-thogonal manipulation of message frame and argumentquality is desirable, because it rules out potetitial compre-hension ability or familiarity differences across matched andmismatched frames. Participants were randomly assigned toreceive one of the four messages,

Independent Variablen

Message Framing. The title and introductory para-graph constituted the extroversion-introversion messageframe manipulation. An example of a sentence within theextrovert frame is, '"Wiib the Mannux VCR. you'll be thelife of the party, whether the party's in your home or outof it." An example of a sentence within the introvert frameis, "With the Mannux VCR, you can have all of the luxuriesof a movie theater without having to deal with the crowds."

Argument QutiUtx, The message arguments followedthe frame and were manipulated either to strongly supportor to weakly support lhe VCR but be irrelevant to theintrovert-extrovert dimension. An example of a strong ar-gument is, "The VCR includes a deluxe digital, on-screentiming program that determines how much tape is left, howmuch time is left in the current program, and how long thecurrent program has been playing." An example of a weakargument is. ""The VCR includes an eject button on its frontface that permits you lo remove the video and get a roughidea of how much tape is lclt."

Extroversion Measurement. After completing all ofthe dependent variables (see below), participants completedthe Eysenck Personality Questionnaire—Revised (EPQ-R)Short Version ^Eysenck et al. 1985). The shortened versioncontains four 12-item subscales: extroversion, psychoticism.neuroticism, and a lie scale. Participants indicated whethereach statement was characteristic of them by circling '"Yes"or "No." Allhough the extroversion subseale was the onlyscale of interest for the purposes of this experiment, partic-ipants completed the entire 4S-item scale in which the 12extroversion items were embedded. This was dune to reducethe chance^ ihal participants would perceive a link betweenthe persuasive messages and tbe personality scale. The ex-troversion subscale has been shown to exhibit good internalreliability (alphas in mid-to-upper .8 range; Eysenck et al.1985) and provides an expedient means of assessing extro-version.

790 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Dependent Measures

After reading the message, participants indicated theirattitudes and perceptions on a number of measures.

Brand Attitudes (Abrand). Participants indicated theirpositivity toward the Mannux VCR along six seven-pointsemantic differential scales. The scale anchors were good-bad, favorable-unfavorable, positive-negative, desirable-undesirable, beneficial-harmful, and convincing-unconvinc-ing. These items exhibited internal consistency (a = .96).

Participants also rated the believability and desirability ofthe product having the features described in the advertise-ment. The believability rating was assessed by a questionasking, "To what extent did you believe that the VCR pos-sessed the features stated?" The desirability rating was as-sessed by a question asking, "Assuming the VCR DID pos-sess the features stated, how desirable were the featuresin general?" Each of these questions was accompaniedby a seven-point scale anchored by 1 = not at all and7 — very much. To form an attitude measure, the believ-ability and desirability ratings were multiplied to form anexpectancy-value variable. This variable is derived from at-titude theory, which suggests that positive attitudes are theresult of perceiving an attitude object as highly likely toyield positive features or outcomes (Fishbein and Ajzen1975). To the extent that the features of the VCR are per-ceived to be undesirable or to the extent that positive featuresare unbelievable, attitudes, as reflected in this computation,should be less positive. This expectancy-value index effec-tively taps the belief component of attitudes (Ajzen andFishbein 1980), which corresponds closely to our argumentquality manipulation.

Cognitive Responses. Participants were instructed tolist the thoughts that they had while reading the advertise-ment. Fach thought was to be listed in a separate box. Afterrecording their cognitive responses, participants were in-structed to rate each thought as positive, neutral, or negativetoward the VCR.

Behavioral Intentions. Two questions assessed partic-ipants' behavioral intentions with respect to the VCR. Thefirst asked, "If you needed a VCR, how likely would yoube to purchase the Mannux VCR?" and "How likely wouldyou be to recommend this VCR to others?" Both questionswere accompanied by scales anchored by 1 = not at alllikely and 7 = extremely likely. These items were averagedto form a behavioral intention index (a = .98).

Perceptions of Argument Quality. To assess partici-pants' perceptions of the quality of the arguments moredirectly, we asked them, "How strong were the argumentsin favor of the Mannux VCR?" Participants responded ona seven-point scale anchored by 1 = not at all and 7 =very much.

Self-Reported Cognition. Although it was unclearwhether participants would be aware of their differential

processing across matched and mismatched messages, weincluded items to assess participants' self-reported cogni-tion. The four items were, "To what degree did you Payattention to the message you read about the VCR?" "Didyou think deeply about the information contained in thismessage?" "How much effort did you put into reading themessage?" and "How personally involved did you feel withthe issue you read about?" These items were averaged toform a self-reported cognition index (a = .81).

Suspicion Check. Participants reported their beliefsconcerning the purpose of the experiment and whether theybelieved there was a link between the different experimentaltasks (and, if so, what it was). Although a number of par-ticipants were aware that personality was measured at theend of the experiment, only one participant reported sus-picion that "different personalities" might allocate differ-ential attention to the ads. Dropping this participant fromthe analyses does not affect the results.

RESULTS

Effects of Message Frame on Extroversion Scores

One concern with our procedure was that it was possiblefor the manipulated message frame to bias participants' re-ports of their own extroversion on the FPQ-R. To test thispossibility, an independent samples r-test was conducted.This f-test was nonsignificant (f( 1,124) = .60,p = .55, in-trovert message M = 9.00, extrovert message M = 8.63),indicating that participants" responses to the scale items wereuncontaminated by the message frame manipulation.

Brand Attitudes (Abrand)

As expected, the two brand attitude measures (i.e., se-mantic differential and expectancy x value) were highlycorrelated (r = .76, p < .0001), and they loaded on a singlefactor accounting for 88% of the variance. Thus, to simplifypresentation and to provide a more reliable index of partic-ipants" attitudes, an attitude index was computed. This indexis equal to the mean of the standardized values for the twobrand attitude measures.

Examination of the distribution of extroversion scoresrevealed that this distribution was highly skewed towardextroversion (p < .001), and so we conducted a tertiary spliton extroversion scores. The upper third of the distributionwas labeled high extroversion, the middle third was labeledmoderate extroversion, and the lower third was labeled lowextroversion. Analyses on Abrand were conducted using a2 (message frame: introvert vs. extrovert) x 2 (argumentquality: strong vs. weak) x 3 (extroversion: low vs. mod-erate vs. high) ANOVA. Larger argument quality effectswere predicted to occur in highly matched, rather than highlymismatched, message conditions. These relative differencesin the impact of argument quality would lead individualsto tend to be more persuaded by matched messages when

SELF-SCHEMA MATCHING AND ATTITUDE CHANGE 791

arguments are strong, but somewhat less persuaded bymatched messages when arguments were weak.

The ANOVA on brand attitudes yielded a significantmain effect of argument quality (F(l, 110) = 52.48, p<.0001) and a main effect of extroversion (F(2,110) =3.23, p = .04). Importantly, these effects were qualified bythe predicted message frame x extroversion x argumentquality interaction (F(2,110) = 4.47, p = .01). As indi-cated in the top panel of table 1, the effect of argumentquahty depended on the extent of message matching. Totest this effect more precisely, we conducted a planned con-trast to assess whether the argument quality effects werelarger in the matched (high extroverts-extroversion frame/low extroverts-introversion frame), rather than the mis-matched (high extroverts-introversion frame/low extroverts-extroversion frame), cells of our design (Kirk 1982; one-tailed probabilities reported). This analysis indicated thatparticipants' attitudes were more reflective of the quality ofthe arguments when the message frame matched, rather thanmismatched, their level of extroversion (F(l, 110) = 8.57,p < .005). Follow-up least significance difference (LSD)comparisons indicated that the argument quality effectswere nearly four times larger when the message frameprovided a strong match to participants' level of extrover-sion (F(l, 110) = 29.43, p < .0001) than when the messageframe provided a strong mismatch to participants' level ofextroversion (F(l, 110) = 6.37, p = .01). Thus, the argu-ment quality effect was greater when the message providedthe best match to the schemata of message recipients thanwhen mismatching was at a maximum.

Cognitive Responses

A cognitive response index was computed as the differ-ence in the number of positive thoughts and the number of

negative thoughts divided by the total number of thoughts.The ANOVA on the cognitive response index yielded onlya significant main effect of argument quality (F(l,l\O) =12.24, p = .001) such that individuals' thoughts were morefavorable to the strong than to the weak arguments.

Behavioral Intentions

Behavioral intentions were also analyzed using the ter-tiary split measure of extroversion. This ANOVA yieldeda significant main effect of argument quality (F(\, JlO) =48.42, /7<.OOO1) and a main effect of message frame(F( 1,110) = 3.87, p = .05). Additionally, the predictedmessage frame x extroversion x argument quality inter-action was significant (F{2,110) = 4.47, p - .01). As in-dicated in the third panel of table 1, the effect of argumentquality depended on the extent of message matching(planned contrast, F(l,110) = 8.87, p<.005). Follow-upLSD comparisons indicated that the argument quality effectswere over four times larger when the message frame pro-vided a strong match to participants' level of extroversion(F(l,110) = 35.76, p<.000\) than when the messageframe provided a strong mismatch to participants' level ofextroversion (F(l, 110) = 6.82,;? = .06). Thus, the patternon behavioral intentions followed that for attitudes.

Perceptions of Argument Quality

To assess directly the extent to which participants wereattentive to variations in argument quality, we asked themhow strong they perceived the arguments to be. The ANOVAon perceptions of argument quality yielded significantmain effects of manipulated argument quality (F(l, 110) —38.09, p < .0001), message frame (F(l, 110) = 4.03, p =.05), and extroversion (F(l,110) = 4.75, p - .01). Addi-

TABLE 1

MEANS FOR DEPENDENT VARIABLES AS A FUNCTION OF MESSAGE FRAME, EXTROVERSION,AND ARGUMENT OUAUTY (EXPERIMENT 1)

Dependent variable and partici-pant extroversion

Brand attitudes:LowModerateHigh

Cognitive responses:LowModerateHigh

Behavioral intentions:LowModerateHigh

Perceptions of argument quality:LowModerateHigh

Introvert

Weak arguments

-1.103(.258)-.168, (.231)-.468, (.195)

-.7O83 (.243)- .252, (.217)-.7O83 (.184)

1.383 (.598)3.35, (.535)2.29, (.452)

1.63, (.565)3.2O3 (.506)2.863 (427)

message frame

Strong arguments

.814, (.203)

.787, (.203)

.546, (.276)

.226, (.190)

.378, (.190)-.033, (.260)

5.62, (.469)5.23, (.469)4.86, (.639)

5.54, (.444)5.31, (.444)5.29, (.605)

Extrovert

Weak arguments

-.526, (.203)-.546, (.220)- . 571 , (.422)

- . 6173 , (.190)-.25O3, (.207)-.6673 (.397)

2.5O3 (.469)2.823, (.510)1.333,0 (.976)

2.92^, (.444)3.363 (.482)2.OO3 (.923)

message frame

Strong arguments

-.292, (.298).4123, (.189).696, (.243)

-.583, (.280)-.243, (.177)- .0653, , , (.229)

2.923, (-690)3.93, (.437)5.22, (.564)

2.17, (.653)4.73, (.413)4.78, (.533)

NOTE.—Means within each factor and cjependent variable that do not share a common subscript differ atp< .05 (one tailed). Standard errors appear in parentheses.

792 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

tionally, there was a significant message frame argumentquality interaction (F(l, 110) = 6.95, p = .01). Impor-tantly, these effects were qualified by the predicted mes-sage frame x extroversion x argument quality interaction(F(2,110) = 5.64, p = .005). As indicated in the bottompanel of table 1, the effect of argument quality dependedon the extent of message matching (planned contrast,F(l, 110) = 10.10, p < .005). Follow-up LSD comparisonsindicated that the argument quality effects were over ninetimes larger when the message frame provided a strongmatch to participants' level of extroversion (F( 1,110) =27.08, p < .0001) than when the message frame provideda strong mismatch to participants" level of extroversion(F( 1,110) = 2.39, p = .13). As expected, matching themessage to a self-schema led to greater detection of argu-ment quality than mismatching.

Self-Reported Cognition

The ANOVA on participants' self-reported cognitionyielded only a message frame x extroversion interaction(F(2,110) = 4.33, p = .02). Within the introversion mes-sage frame condition, there was a trend (F(l, 110) = 2.06,p = .13) such that people low in extroversion (M = 5.77)reported greater levels of thought than highly extrovertedpeople (M = 4.13, p < .05), and moderately introvertedpeople reported levels of thought in between (M = 5.35).Within the extroversion message frame condition, there wasa finding (F(l, 110) = 3.19, p = .05) such that highly ex-troverted people (M = 6.54) tended to report greater levelsof thought than those low (M = 5.45, p = .10) or moderate(M = 4.99, p = .05) in extroversion. Hence, participantshad some sense of their own differential levels of elaborationacross matching and mismatching frames.

DISCUSSIONThe results of experiment 1 were generally consistent with

our hypotheses. Matched messages led to larger effects ofargument quality than did mismatched messages. As a result,when arguments were strong, matching tended to increasepersuasion. When arguments were weak, matching tendedto decrease persuasion. This pattern was shown for attitudestoward the brand, behavioral intentions, and perceptions ofargument quality. In addition, these differential processingpatterns tended to be refiected in participants' subjectiveperceptions. Specifically, participants tended to perceivethemselves as allocating greater attention and effort towardreading the advertisement when it matched their self-schemata.

The somewhat different results for cognitive responseswere unexpected. It is not clear why the results for thisvariable would differ from the results of the other variables.It is possible that features of the product category (VCRsin general) rather than the product itself (the Mannux VCR)were responsible for the anomalous results. The thoughtsthat participants listed often refiected aspects of the productcategory (e.g., "VCRs are outdated"), in addition to the

specific attitude object, and thus do not strictly reflect per-ceptions of the object described in the message, as do theother dependent variables. Additionally, many thoughtswere ambiguous with respect to the target, and so codingfor target versus category thoughts was unsuccessful. Forexample, the thought "I wouldn't buy one"" could refer tothe VCR category (i.e., they would prefer a DVD playerover a VCR) or to the Mannux VCR in particular. In anycase, although the cognitive response measure was insen-sitive to the matching effect, the dependent measures thatmore directly tapped product evaluation produced effectsthat were compatible with our hypothesis that matchingwould enhance information processing.

In experiment 2, we provided another test of the self-schema elaboration matching effect, and we used a differentproduct category (i.e., toothpaste) to eliminate these poten-tial product category effects. Additionally, we used a newself-schema matching variable to test the generality of self-schema matching effects beyond the dimension of extro-version. More specifically, we used the personality dimen-sion of NC as the variable that was matched or mismatchedby the advertisement. Need for cognition is an individualdifference variable that corresponds with individuals' pro-pensity to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities.

EXPERIMENT 2Experiment 2 used the self-schema variable of NC for

two reasons. First, although there are almost certainly in-dividual differences in the extent to which NC is a centraland important schema for individuals, research has shownthat NC is associated with many of the phenomena thatMarkus (1977) associated with schematicity (Feinstein1996). For example, individuals who are high in NC ratethemselves as extreme on cognizer traits, rate the traits ashighly important, recall the traits effectively, and exhibitfaster reaction times to relevant than irrelevant traits. Ad-ditionally, they manifest behaviors of individuals schematicon cognition by framing descriptions of their behavior incognitive terms and by confidently judging others with re-spect to intellective features. Hence, NC is an important,accessible, and salient self-dimension for many individuals.

Second, the use of NC as the self-schema leads to a ratherinteresting and counterintuitive prediction. A considerableamount of research on NC has shown that high NC (HNC)individuals are more influenced by argument quality dif-ferences in persuasive messages than are low NC (LNC)individuals, although motivational and ability factors canaffect the extent to which HNC and LNC individuals willengage in extensive elaboration (Petty and Cacioppo 1986).In the context of a self-schema matching paradigm, the pre-diction would be that both HNC and LNC individuals wouldengage in greater elaboration of matched than mismatchedmessages and that this effect would sometimes lead to pro-cessing differences contrary to their general dispositionaltendencies (e.g., LNC individuals receiving the low-thinking[matched] frame might lead to more thinking than HNCindividuals receiving the low-thinking [mismatched] frame).

SELF-SCHEMA MATCHING AND ATTITUDE CHANGE 793

Of greatest interest, for the matching effect to be obtained,the self-schema match effect must sometimes override thechronic information processing tendencies of the messagerecipients as well as any possible direct effect of the messageframe (e.g., that all individuals would more effortfully pro-cess the message with the thoughtful than with the non-thoughtful frame because of demand characteristics). Thus,obtaining the self-schema matching effect using the schemaof NC would provide evidence for the robustness of self-schema matching as a determinant of elaboration.

METHOD

Overview

Participants were told that they would be completing anexperiment that involved the evaluation of transcripts ofradio advertisements from Great Britain. Participants readtwo advertisements. The first advertisement was a filler ad-vertisement. The second advertisement was designed to ap-peal to either people who enjoy thinking or do not enjoythinking and contained either strong or weak arguments.After reading the target transcript, participants reported theirattitudes toward the object advertised in the message andcompleted the short form of the NC scale (Cacioppo et al.1984). At the conclusion of the experiment, participantswere thanked, debriefed, and dismissed.

Participants

Participants were 179 undergraduate students who re-ceived partial course credit in compensation for their par-ticipation in the experiment.

Procedure

Participants were told that they would be reading tran-scripts of radio advertisements that had been broadcast inBritain to see if they "work" in the United States. The firstadvertisement, a filler item, promoted a gasoline companyostensibly based in Britain. None of the information in thegasoline ad was related to NC or to the target ad. The second,target advertisement promoted Fluorident, ostensibly a brandof toothpaste available in Britain. Two components of thetarget advertisement were manipulated: the message frame(appeal to HNC vs. LNC people) and the quality of themessage arguments (strong arguments vs. weak arguments).As in study 1, argument quality and message frame weremanipulated orthogonally. The message frame was manip-ulated throughout the target transcript. After reading themessage, participants reported their attitudes, thoughts, andperceptions of the advertisement.

Independent Variables

Message Framing. The message was framed to appealto either HNC or LNC individuals. For example, the HNC-framed advertisement began with, "I'll bet you're the type

of person who likes to look at the details when you makechoices. You want to know which choice is best, but youalso want to know why." It concluded with "Fluorident:When you think about it, it's the only choice!" Conversely,the LNC-framed advertisement began with, "I'll bet you'rethe type of person who doesn't like to sit around and thinkabout all of the little details when you make choices. Youfind what you're looking for and move on with your life."It concluded with, "Fluorident: No need to think twice! It'sthe only choice." Similar differences in wording appearedthroughout the advertisement.

Argument Quality. The message arguments were ma-nipulated either to strongly support or to weakly support thetoothpaste. For example, participants who read the strong-argument transcripts read, "Its cool, minty fiavour cleansyour breath all day, and in a national consumer test, sevenof ten people chose the fiavour of Fluorident over the leadingbrand." People who read the weak-argument transcripts in-stead read, "Its cool, mint-like fiavour cleans your breathfor over an hour, and in a national consumer test, three often people chose the packaging of Fluorident over theircurrent toothpastes."

Measurement of Need for Cognition. After complet-ing all of the dependent variables (see below), participantscompleted the 18-item NC scale (Cacioppo et al. 1984). Par-ticipants indicated the extent to which each statement wascharacteristic of themselves on a five-point scale anchored by1 = extremely unlike me and 5 = extremely like me.

Dependent Measures

After reading the message, participants indicated theirattitudes and perceptions on the same set of items employedin experiment 1, with the exception that the last two semanticdifferential items, the self-reported cognition items, and be-havioral intention items were not included. No participantsreported suspicion regarding the procedures.

RESULTS

Effects of the Message Frame on Need forCognition Scores

As in experiment 1, it was possible for the message frameto bias how participants responded to the NC scale. To testthis possibility, an independent samples f-test was conducted.This Mest was nonsignificant (r( 1,177) = .60, p = .55,LNC message M = 62.97, HNC message M = 61.94), in-dicating that participants' responses to the scale items wereuncontaminated by the message frame manipulation.

Attitude Measures

Need for cognition scores were normally distributed, andparticipants were categorized as high or low in NC on thebasis of a median split. Analyses were then conducted using

794 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

a message frame x NC x argument quality ANOVA withNC groups formed with a median split.

The two brand attitude measures (i.e., semantic differ-ential and expectancy value) were highly correlated (r =.65, p < .0001), and they loaded on a single factor account-ing for 82% of the variance. Thus, to simplify presentationand to provide a more reliable index of participants' atti-tudes, an attitude index was again computed as the meanof the standardized values for the two brand attitudemeasures.

Brand Attitudes (Abrand). The ANOVA on Abrandyielded a significant main effect of argument quality(F(l,165) = 41.01, ;7<.OOO1). This effect was qualifiedmarginally by the predicted message frame x NC xargument quality interaction (F(l, 165) = 3.12, p = .08,see top panel of table 2). As in experiment 1, follow-upplanned contrasts tested whether the argument quality effectwas larger in the matched (HNC—high thought messageframe/LNC—low thought message frame) message frameconditions than in the mismatched (HNC—low thought mes-sage/LNC—high thought message) message frame condi-tions. This contrast was significant (F(l, 165) = 3.44, p <.05). Follow-up LSD comparisons indicated that the argu-ment quality effects were over twice as large when the mes-sage frame matched participants' level NC (F(l,165) =30.45, p < .0001) than when message frame mismatchedparticipants' level of NC (F(l, 165) = 11.90, p = .001).

Cognitive Responses. The ANOVA on the cognitiveresponse index yielded a significant main effect of argu-ment quality (F(l, 165) = 14.05, p = .0002). This effectwas qualified by the predicted message frame x NC xargument quality interaction (F(l, 165) = 4.23,p = .04, seemiddle panel of table 2). A planned contrast indicated thatthe argument quality effect was larger in the matched, rath-er than the mismatched, message conditions (F(l, 165) =4.00, p < .05). Follow-up LSD comparisons indicated thatthe argument quality effects were over nine times as largewhen the message frame matched participants' level of NC

(F(l, 165) = 15.37, p = .0001) than when message framemismatched participants' level of NC (f"(l, 165) = 1.58,P = .21).

Perceptions of Argument Quality. The ANOVA onperceptions of argument quality yielded a significant maineffect of manipulated argument quality (F( 1,165) =44.37, p < .0001). This effect was qualified by a messageframe x NC x argument quality interaction (F(l, 165) =4.23, p = .04, see bottom panel of table 2). A plannedcontrast indicated that perceptions of argument quality weremore refiective of actual argument quality in the matched,rather than the mismatched, message frame conditions(F(l,165) = 4.48, p < .05). Follow-up LSD comparisons in-dicated that the argument quality effects were over 2.5 timesas large when the message frame matched participants' levelof NC (F(l, 165) = 34.69, p < .0001) than when messageframe mismatched participants' level of NC (F(l, 165) =11.72, p = .001).

DISCUSSION

Experiment 2 provided additional evidence that matchingadvertisements to individuals' self-schemata can lead to in-creased effects of the quality of the information in the ads.Both cognitive responses and attitudes were more refiectiveof the advertisement's argument quality when the messageframe matched their level of NC, which is consistent withthe possibility of differential cognitive elaboration acrossmatched and mismatched message conditions. These effectsare noteworthy in part because NC was the targeted self-schema. The self-schema matching effect was observedacross participants' chronic disposition to engage in high orlow levels of elaboration.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Much contemporary research has examined how the self-concept can infiuence and be influenced by consumer be-havior variables. Some such research has focused on ante-

TABLE 2

MEANS FOR DEPENDENT VARIABLES AS A FUNCTION OF MESSAGE FRAME, NEED FOR COGNITION,AND ARGUMENT OUALITY (EXPERIMENT 2)

Dependent variable and partici-pant need for cognition

Nonthoughtful message frame Thoughtful message frame

Weak arguments Strong arguments Weak arguments Strong arguments

Brand attitudes:LNCHNC

Cognitive responses:LNCHNC

Perceptions of argument quality:LNCHNC

-.4163 (.214)-.428,,, (.166)

-.533, (.168)-.522, (.130)

2.87, (.385)3.32, (.298)

.512, (.181)

.288, (.166)

.102, (.142)-.179, (.130)

5.05, (.326)4.12, (.298)

- .190, (.173)-.663, (.181)

-.337, (.136)-.520, (.142)

3.78, (.311)2.95, (.326)

.337, (.181)

.495, (.177)

- .341,, , (.142).063, (.139)

5.10, (.326)4.77,,, (.318)

NOTE.—LNC = low need for cognition; HNC = high need for cognition. Means within each factor and dependent variable that do not share a common subscriptdiffer at p<.05 (one taiied). Standard errors appear in parentheses.

SELF-SCHEMA MATCHING AND ATTITUDE CHANGE 795

cedents of the self-concept. For example, Escalas andBettman (2003) demonstrated that aspirations to be a mem-ber of a group can lead people to incorporate brands as-sociated with that group into their self-concepts. Other suchresearch has instead focused on the consequences of theself-concept. For example, individuals who reported thatbeing health conscious was part of their self-concept alsoreported eating fewer animal products (Sparks and Guthrie1998), and individuals who reported that recycling was apart of their self-concept were more likely to report havingrecycled in their homes (Terry, Hogg, and White 1999).Similarly, Kacen and Lee (2002) demonstrated that a per-son's independent-interdependent self-concept can predictimpulse buying behavior.

The current reseeurch extends our understanding of theimportance of self-schemata by providing evidence that self-schemata can affect attitude change outcomes in differentways, depending on the extent to which they are accuratelytargeted by advertisers. Across the two experiments, match-ing message fi-aming to a self-schema was shown to increasethe impact of argument quality on resulting attitudes. Thisis consistent with the hypothesis that self-schema-matchedmessages receive greater cognitive elaboration. These stud-ies extend prior work on self-schema matching to demon-strate that self-schema matching need not invariably increasepersuasion. In some cases, such as when the arguments inthe message are specious, it may actually decrease persua-sion. The notion that targeted advertisements increase fa-vorability is almost taken for granted by many marketers,but the current studies show—across different self-schemata,different persuasive messages, and different products—thatthis assumption is not always warranted.

Understanding the mechanism whereby self-schemamatching exerts its influence is important for understandingnot only short-term attitude change outcomes, but also forunderstanding long-term outcomes. Attitude change that isbased on high levels of elaboration is more likely to influ-ence thought and behavior and more likely to be persistentover time and resistant to counterattack (Petty and Cacioppo1986). Thus, because self-schema matching can increasemessage elaboration, it can be a useful tool for creatingdurable and influential attitudes.

Multiple Roles for Schema Matching

The results of studies 1 and 2 are consistent with the ac-count that matching messages to individuals' self-schematacan increase elaboration. Under schema-matched conditions,participants' attitudes were more reflective of the quality ofthe arguments in the message rather than under schema-niismatched conditions. We do not believe that this is theonly effect of schema matching, however. Other mechanismsmay also operate in particular circumstances. For instance,the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo1986) indicates that many persuasion variables, such as self-schema matching, can influence persuasion via multipleprocesses.

For example, if the elaboration likelihood was constrained

to be low (e.g., the context was highly distracting), self-schema matching might increase favorability by acting as acue. A message recipient may reason, "If the product is forme, I like it!" Research indicates that individuals preferthings associated with the self, whether they are the lettersof one's own name (Nuttin 1985) or the members of one'sarbitrary in-group (Tajfel 1981). Alternately, under highelaboration likelihood conditions, self-schema matchingcould increase favorability by biasing elaboration. Messagerecipients may be motivated to generate favorable cognitionsabout attitude objects linked to the self, especially if the selfwere somehow implicated by the quality of the product.Self-serving motivated reasoning has been well documentedin the literature (see Baumeister 1998). Future research couldexamine these multiple roles directly by manipulating base-line elaboration likelihood within a schema-matching con-text. In the current research, the background elaborationcontext was not constrained to be high or low, and matchingactivated schemata to message frames led to greater messageprocessing than mismatching.

Schematicity and Schema Strength

Markus (1977) outlined two criteria for determining sche-maticity, or the extent to which an individual was schematicfor a given dimension. Specifically, to be classified as sche-matic, individuals had to rate themselves extremely on thedimension and rate it as very important to them. In thepresent experiments, these strict operational criteria werenot used. That is, although individuals rated themselves onthe dimensions of interest (extroversion-introversion or en-joyment of thinking), we did not assess the importance ofthese dimensions to the individuals. Thus, within each ofour self-schema groups there were presumably subgroupswho viewed the dimension as relatively important and un-important. Although the matching effect was robust enoughto occur among our general samples, the effect would pre-sumably be stronger for those individuals for whom thedimension was a particularly important or salient aspect oftheir self concept. Because schematic individuals have morestable, central, and extreme self-conceptions along the rel-evant dimension, they should be more likely to notice andto identify correctly matching versus mismatching messages.Hence, because individuals in the present studies were notscreened for schematicity, these experiments provide astrong test of the robustness of the elaboration matchingeffect.

Although Markus identified the dimensions of extremityand importance as the defining features of schematicity,there are many other, possibly related schema features thatcould affect persuasion outcomes. These include the acces-sibility of the schema, how well elaborated the schema is,how much knowledge on which the schema is based, andhow certain the individual is about his or her standing onthe schema dimension. Although Markus (1977) found thatsome of these dimensions (e.g., importance and accessibil-ity) were correlated, they need not all be. Research on theseconstructs within the attitudes domain has indicated that

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

these different strength indicators do not load on to a singlelatent factor, and a stable multifactor structure has yet toemerge (Krosnick et al. 1993).

Even if the various dimensions of self-schemata were allhighly correlated, they might be associated with differenteffects on persuasion outcomes. For exatnple. as noted, self-schema importance might be expected to magnify the pre-dicted outcomes for self-schema matching (e.g.. importantself-.schemata could act as a stronger instigator of elabt)-ration). However, high leveU of certainty might operatedifferently. For example, individuals high in self-schemacertainty might show matching effects as in the present ex-periments, but individuals low in certainty might effortfullyprocess al! information related to either pole (e.g., intro-version or extroversion) of the self-schema dimension. Thus,like attitude strength variables, it is possible that these self-schema strength variables would exhibit somewhat complexand varied patterns, and a single factor model may over-simplify the ti-ue nature of these constructs.

Conclusion

The experiments in this article provide evidence regardinghow and when self-schema matching increases persuasion.They challenge the notion that matching persuasive mes-sages to recipients' self-schemata invariably increases per-suasion and lend support to a differential elaboration accountof matching-mismatching effects when elaboration is notconstrained to be very high or low. This revised understand-ing raises new types of research questions and opens unex-plored avenues of investigation.

[Dunn luLuhucci sen'ed as eililor and Laura Penicchwset-ved as associate editor for this article. \

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