Department of Operations and Information Management, University of Connecticut, Stamford, CT, United States of America.
Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution, Stamford, CT, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Feb 19;15(2):e0228185. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228185. eCollection 2020.
We examine the effects of exposure to negative information in attack advertisements in the context of Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Common Core (CC) education standards and show that they lead to an increase in the ACA enrollments and support of the CC standards. To explain this effect, we rely on the knowledge-gap theory and show that individuals who were exposed to more attack advertisements were also more likely to independently seek information, become more knowledgeable, and consequently support these subjects. In addition to an observational study, to test our hypotheses on the link between exposure to negative information, curiosity, and shifts in knowledge and support levels, we design and conduct a randomized experiment using a sample of 300 unique individuals. Our multi-methods research contributes to marketing literature by documenting a rare occasion in which exposure to attack advertisements leads to increased demand and unveiling the mechanisms through which this effect takes place.
我们考察了在平价医疗法案（ACA）和共同核心（CC）教育标准的背景下，接触负面攻击广告的影响，结果表明，这会导致 ACA 的参保率增加，并对 CC 标准表示支持。为了解释这一效应，我们依据知识鸿沟理论表明，接触更多攻击广告的人也更有可能主动寻找信息，变得更有知识，从而对这些主题表示支持。除了进行观察性研究，为了检验我们关于负面信息接触、好奇心以及知识和支持水平变化之间联系的假设，我们还设计并开展了一项随机实验，该实验使用了 300 名独特个体的样本。我们的多方法研究通过记录了一个罕见的案例，即接触攻击广告会导致需求增加，并揭示了这种效应发生的机制，为营销文献做出了贡献。
