Differences in Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion: A Cross‐Cultural Study on Individualism--Collectivism
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2021-06-19
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en
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This study investigates the differences between individualistic cultures and collectivistic cultures with respect to differences in persuasion knowledge measured through the ‘inferences of manipulative intent’, the use of a culture congruent tactic and the effect of this persuasion knowledge on the persuasion of consumers from both cultures. The research question investigated in this study was: “What are the differences between using a congruent and a non-congruent persuasion tactic in individualistic and collectivistic cultures between the inferences of manipulative intent and persuasion of consumers and what is the effect of this degree of inferences of manipulative intent on persuasion cross-culturally?” The relevance of this study is encountered in the fact that advertisers have to adapt to different cultures in order to be persuasive. Studying the effect of persuasion knowledge and the differences of persuasion knowledge cross-culturally could provide more insights in how to cope with different consumers across the globe. This study used an experiment as method with the use two nationalities, Dutch and Vietnamese, that represented the two different cultures divided into three groups; one that was exposed to a scarcity tactic, one that was exposed to a reciprocity tactic and one control group. The main findings of this study show that both cultures have differences in degree of inferences of manipulative intent and therefore possibly differ in terms of persuasion knowledge. These differences between collectivistic and individualistic cultures support the findings of Hofstede (1991) in which differences between cultures were investigated with the help of five dimensions. However, these differences were not evoked by whether a tactic was congruent or non-congruent with the specific culture as found by Orji (2016). This could be explained by the fact that this study uses a European culture where Orji (2016) used a North-American culture to represent the individualistic culture. Furthermore, a high degree of inferences of manipulative intent show to have a negative effect on persuasion for both cultures. This supports the previous finding of Campbell (1995). A high degree of manipulative intent signifies negativity towards the ad which could be the cause for less persuasion.
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