Differential Priming of Gender and Coupling of Affect and Cognition in Anthropomorphic Stimulation

Abstract

Affect and cognition are two widely studied variables in researches concerned with behavioral science. This study assesses the relationship of these constructs in advertising. Earlier researches have considered these as either operating independently or as one acting as a precursor to the other. This study analyzes the findings of neuroscience in an experimental setting for anthropomorphic and unanthropomorphic advertisement. The study further looks into the moderating role of gender influence on priming, when exposed to advertisement. In consonance with the neurological advances, the author proposes a non-recursive model, showing intermodulation of affect and cognition. In this study 661 and 620 subjects were exposed to schema congruous anthropomorphic and unanthropomorphic advertisement respectively in a cross sectional study. The non recursive model for Cognitive and Affective priming was tested with polychoric correlation and asymptotic covariance as input matrix, with Robust Diagonally Weighted Least Square as estimation method using Lisrel 9.1 software. The findings of the study lend support to the recent advances of neuroscience that affect and cognition are mutually reinforcing for anthropomorphic treatment but not for unanthropomorphic advertisement. Findings also show that females are more affectively primed and male more cognitively primed on exposure to anthropomorphic advertisement.