Automatically Activated Attitudes as Mechanisms for Message Effects: The Case of Alcohol Advertisements

Alcohol advertisements may influence impulsive, risky behaviors indirectly, via automatically activated attitudes toward alcohol. Results from an experiment in which participants were exposed to either four alcohol advertisements, four control advertisements, or four drunk driving public service advertisements (PSAs) suggested that alcohol advertisements had more measurable effects on implicit than on explicit attitude measures. Moreover, there were significant indirect paths from alcohol advertisement exposure through automatically activated alcohol attitudes on willingness to engage in risky alcohol-related behaviors, notably drinking and driving. A mechanism that may explain how these advertisements activate automatic, nondeliberative alcohol attitudes was investigated. Associative evidence was found supportive of an evaluative conditioning mechanism, in which positive responses to an alcohol advertisement may lead to more positive automatically activated attitudes toward alcohol.

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