The Meaning of Distraction: How Metacognitive Inferences from Distraction Affect Brand Attitudes
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Date
2017-03
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Abstract
Consumers often encounter advertisements in the background while primarily focused on
other stimuli. In this research, we show that the distraction consumers experience from these
background ads serves as a metacognitive cue from which inferences are drawn. Across five
studies, we demonstrate that when consumers find themselves more distracted than expected by a
background advertisement, they draw on an underlying lay theory that distraction implies interest
in the contents of the distracting stimulus to make the metacognitive inference that they are
interested in the advertised brand. We identify important moderators for this effect, including
accessibility and diagnosticity of the distraction = interest lay theory, the extent to which
consumers perceive distraction from a focal task to have negative consequences, and an
individual’s explicit level of belief that distraction implies interest. Thus, this research uncovers
a new metacognitive cue that consumers use to form evaluations of brands and explores
attitudinal consequences of distraction beyond its impact on performance or memory-related
measures. Our work also provides practical insight into how consumers are influenced by
advertisements they encounter while primarily focused on a concurrent but unrelated task.
Description
Business: 2nd Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum)
Keywords
lay theories, metacognitive inferences, distraction, background advertisements