Exploring linkage of message frames with personality traits for political advertising effectiveness

Abstract

This study examined the different and combined effects of regulatory focus (i.e. prevention-focused vs. promotion-focused) and issue involvement (i.e. high vs. low) with message frames (i.e. prevention-framed vs. promotion-framed) on attitude toward ads, message preference, and voting intention. Taken together, our findings revealed statistically significant two-way interaction effects of regulatory focus and message frames on all dependent measures, including attitude toward ads, message preference and voting intention; however, neither regulatory focus nor message frames exhibited primary effects on those dependent variables. Further, issue involvement was found to have a statistically significant main effect on dependent measures, which negated our expectation of both its interaction effect with message frames and its moderating role between regulatory focus and message frames.