Effects of Affect and Message Framing on Responses to Charity Advertising: A Construal Level and Regulatory Focus Perspective

ABSTRACTCharitable donation appeals can be framed to highlight the attainment of desirable outcomes (promotion framing) or the avoidance of undesirable situations (prevention framing). Drawing from regulatory focus theory, construal level theory, and the linguistic categorization model, this study reveals how the impact of the two messages frames can be influenced by the emotional state of the message recipient. Participants had more favorable attitudes toward charity advertisements, were more likely to donate to a food bank, and placed more value on donating when charity ads highlighted desirable end-states, but only if they were in a positive mood. In a negative mood, participants responded better to charity ads that described how donations could be used to avoid undesirable situations. Analysis showed these effects might occur because people process information differently under the two mood conditions and the two message frames trigger different motivational mind-sets.KEYWORDS: Moodmessage framingcharity advertisingregulatory focus theorypromotion – preventionconstrual level theory Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsGeorge AnghelcevGeorge Anghelcev is Professor of Strategic Communication in the Journalism and Strategic Communication Department at Northwestern University in Qatar.Sela SarSela Sar is Professor of Advertising in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Yan HuangYan Huang is Assistant Professor of Integrated Strategic Communication in the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston.