Mood, persuasion and information presentation

We describe an experiment studying the effectiveness of persuasive digital documents, taking mood, exposure time and site design into account. Participants in either a neutral or a positive mood were confronted with a persuasive site. These sites could either be 'content only' or 'content plus' (the latter using some of the information presentation possibilities offered by digital documents). In addition, in a limited exposure condition, participants were given a restricted time to visit the site, while in the unlimited condition, participants were allowed to spend as much time on the site as desired. The results of the experiment showed that both mood and site design had a strong effect on attitude change, while exposure time did not. Participants in a positive mood were more inclined to change their attitude in the direction of the advocated position than participants in a neutral mood. And, participants visiting a content-plus site were more inclined to change their attitude than participants visiting a content-only site. Interestingly, there was an interaction between these two factors, to the effect that the presence of additional information presentation cues was particularly effective for participants in a positive mood.

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