The malleable effect of name fluency on pharmaceutical drug perception

Abstract

Based on the fluency theory, a recent study by Dohle and Siegrist revealed that complex pharmaceutical drug names are perceived as more hazardous than simple drug names and thus negatively influence patients’ willingness to buy. This study explored the malleability of the name fluency effect on pharmaceutical drug perception by examining the fluency effect in the domain of risk versus advancedness judgment. The findings indicated that depending on how the fluency feeling is interpreted in the context of initial judgment task (e.g. advancedness vs risk), disfluent drug names can positively influence a patient’s perception of the drug, reversing the typical fluency effect.