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Regulatory Focus and Audience Morality: Examining Relationships Between Message Orientation and Moral Intuitions

Regulatory Focus and Audience Morality: Examining Relationships Between Message Orientation and Moral Intuitions

Authors :
Jin Wu
Dan Roberts
Jin A. Choi
Robert Joel Lewis
Source :
Communication Research Reports. 32:1-9
Publication Year :
2015
Publisher :
Informa UK Limited, 2015.

Abstract

Moral foundations theory (MFT) is a psychological framework describing innate and modular moral intuitions. The current study integrates MFT with a motivational conception of morality to link it with regulatory focus theory. By combining these frameworks, we predict that a prevention-focused (vs. promotion-focused) advertising message will prime emphasis of moral domains for in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and moral purity among college students. The framework also suggests that emphasis of these three domains will be positively associated with favorable appraisals of prevention-focused messages. Results support the notion that prevention-focused (vs. promotion-focused) messages prime the three domains but contradict the expectation that these domains are positively associated with favorable appraisals of prevention-focused messages. Observations show that they are, rather, positively associated with favorable appraisals of the promotion-focused message. Discussion centers on interpreting these c...

Details

ISSN :
17464099 and 08824096
Volume :
32
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Communication Research Reports
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........05c9e076a50b231f543519a29aefb1c7
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2014.989968