The Influence of Social Character on Preference for Social Versus Objective Information in Advertising.

An experimental investigation was made of the effect of Riesman's construct of social character on consumers' use and preference for social compared with objective information in evaluating products displayed in advertisements. The results suggest that other-directed individuals tend to be more persuasible by advertising, have a preference for additional social information about the product, but do not have the differential preference for advertising appeals suggested by previous research. Attempts to reconcile these findings lead to a model proposing that an individual's social character has little to do with response to advertising, but does exert a significant effect on information preference between ad exposure and possible purchase of a product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]