知識程度對於修正行為之影響─以訊息類型及代言人產品相關程度為干擾變數

Abstract

修正行為一直是過去這幾年來社會心理學家深感興趣的領域，而其中關於彈性修正模型的理論也早已被廣泛討論於如勸服、刻版印象、歸因理論或是法庭審判等其他專業領域。在過去與修正行為有關的文獻當中，較少的文章去探討影響修正行為的可能因素為何，這裡的影響不單單指修正的方向，也包含修正的幅度(量)。因此在本篇文章當中所進行的三個研究，其主要目的在於探討受測者本身對某單一產品的知識程度是否會在不同的情況下影響其對於產品廣告中所蘊含之訊息的處理方式，進而影響其知覺偏誤感受以及相對應的態度改變，也就是所謂的修正。三個研究的廣告中包含了不同的資訊，而所有受測者均受到高涉入的操弄。在第一個研究中，當廣告中包含與產品屬性直接相關的論述以及喜好度高但與產品無關的代言人時，高知識程度者不會覺得受到代言人偏誤的影響，因為其態度的形成是根據與產品直接相關的論述而來，儘管給予偏誤知識，他們也不會進行修正。但此情況下，低知識程度者因為根據不相關的代言人形成他們對產品的態度，因此在給予偏誤知識會知覺到偏誤的存在與影響，進而會去修正它而使得其對於產品評價降為更低。在第二個研究中，當廣告中只有一個喜好度高但與產品不相關的代言人時，高低知識者形成態度的資訊來源皆根據此代言人，在給予偏誤知識後，兩者均會知覺到偏誤的存在與影響，進而都會去進行修正。同樣地，因為廣告中不相關的代言人是喜好度高且正向的，因此修正會使得高低知識雙方對於產品的評價評得比原來更低。在第三個研究中，當廣告改為只有一位喜好度高且與產品相關度高的代言人時，高低知識程度者形成態度的資訊來源依然只有代言人，但雙方在處理代言人這個資訊上的能力沒有異，因此雙方都能知道代言人與產品之間的高度相關性，也都將其視為與產品屬性直接相關的資訊。因此，在給予偏誤知識後，高低知識程度者不會存有知覺偏誤，因為他們態度判斷取決於與產品有關的資訊，因此雙方都不會去進行修正。在管理意涵上，當某一產品是需要知識來加以判斷的時候，這樣的研究結果可以幫助廠商依照自身資源多寡的情況去決定其廣告策略，進而將彈性修正理論的概念運用至行銷的領域。就學術上的貢獻而言，此篇文章的三個研究驗證了產品知識程度對於修正行為在不同情況下確實有其影響，在未來更進一步的研究中，希望可以找出更多能夠影響修正行為的因素、作為知識程度影響修正行為的中介變數，又或是將本篇文章中的三個研究設計應用於其他產品，廣泛驗證產品知識程度對於修正行為的影響。

Correction behavior has been of lots of interests to many researchers in the social and psychological area and has been applied to many other domains, such as persuasion, impression formation, attribution, courtroom judgment, etc. However, few of past researches discussed about the possible factors that might influence the correction behaviors, the direction and magnitude of correction. Thus, this article aimed to examine that when a product needed people to have specific knowledge to make judgment, how people of high and low knowledge levels, both were under the manipulation of high involvement, would adjust their attitude ratings of product after being reminded of potential bias across the three different situations which also stood for the different contents of the target advertisements of three studies in this article. In study 1, when there were central arguments and a likeable but irrelevant endorser in the target advertisement, people of high knowledge level would not correct; however, people of low knowledge level would. In study 2, when the target advertisement only contained a likeable but irrelevant endorser, both people of high and low knowledge levels would engage in correction. Then in study 3, when the target advertisement only contained a likeable and relevant endorser, both people of high and low knowledge levels would not engage in correction. The results showed that knowledge levels about a product especially when it implied the ability of processing product-relevant information to make judgment did have its impact on the correction behaviors across different situations with different contents in the target advertisements. These results could be helpful to apply the concepts of Flexible Correction Model (FCM) to a firm’s advertising strategy in marketing domain. Besides, this article allowed for further future researches in the aspects of any other potential factors that might influence the correction behaviors or that might mediate the effect of knowledge levels on correction behavior, the application of experimental design and procedures to other products to see if knowledge levels really had effect on correction behaviors.