Inoculating consumers against deception: The influence of framing and executional style

This study examines conditions affecting consumer susceptibility to advertising deception and educational efforts designed to inoculate consumers against it. Results show that consumers are best able to detect deception when their frame of reference (cognitive or affective) is incongruent with the advertisement's executional style (attribute or emotional). Attempts to inoculate consumers against deception by providing factual brand comparisons have their strongest effect among consumers with an affective frame of reference and for emotionally charged ads.

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Die Immunisierung von Konsumenten gegen werbliche Irreführung: Der Einflu der persönlichen Informationsausrichtung und des werblichen Argumentationsstils

Zusammenfassung Die Studie befa\t sich mit den Bedingungen werblicher Irreführung von Konsumenten und mit den Bemühungen der Verbrauchererziehung, Konsumenten durch vergleichende Warentestergebnisse gegen solche Irreführung zu immunisieren. Ihre Ergebnisse zeigen, da\ Konsumenten werbliche Irreführung am ehesten dann durchschauen, wenn ihre persönliche Informationsausrichtung (kognitiv oder affektiv) nicht mit dem werblichen Argumentationsstil (informativ oder emotional) übereinstimmt. Versuche, Konsumenten mit Hilfe vergleichender Warentest-Informationen gegen werbliche TÄuschung zu immunisieren, sind am wirkungsvollsten bei Konsumenten mit affektiver Informationsausrichtung und bei emotionshaltiger Werbung.

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The authors wish to thank Joel Cohen and the Editors and reviewersof Journal of Consumer Policy for their valued suggestions, and Jill Joyce for assistance in data collection and analysis.     

Book Reviews

Andrew MacIntyre (ed.), Business and Government in Industrialising Asia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994, pp. xii + 312. Paper: A$29.95.

John Bresnan, From Dominoes to Dynamos: The Transformation of Southeast Asia, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 1994, pp. x + 115. $17.95.

Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450–1680: Volume Two, Expansion and Crisis, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993, pp. xv + 390.

Binhadi, Financial Sector Deregulation, Banking Development and Monetary Policy: The Indonesian Experience (1983–1993), Indonesian Bankers' Institute, Jakarta, 1995.

Anwar Shah and Zia Qureshi, with Amaresh Bagchi, Brian Binder, and Heng-fu Zou, Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Indonesia: Issues and Reform Options, World Bank Discussion Papers 239, Washington DC, pp. xxxii + 279. $17.95; A$425.00; NZ$30.25.

Jacqueline Vel, The Uma-economy: Indigenous Economics and Development Work in Lawonda, Sumba (Eastern-Indonesia), Wageningen, pp. xiv + 283. $20.00 + $8 postage & handling.

Joao Mariano de Sousa Saldanha, The Political Economy of East Timor Development, translated by Theresia Slamet and P.G. Kattopo, Pustaka Sinar Harapan, Jakarta, 1994, pp. 414.

Jan-Paul Dirkse, Frans H$uUsken and Mario Rutten (eds), Development and Social Welfare: Indonesia's Experiences under the New Order, KITLV Press, Leiden, 1993, pp. 267.

W.G. Huff, The Economic Growth of Singapore: Trade and Development in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, pp. xxi + 472. A$60.

Saha Dhevan Meyanathan (ed.), Industrial Structures and the Development of Small and Medium Enterprise Linkages: Examples from East Asia, The World Bank (Economic Development Institute of the World Bank Seminar Series), Washington DC, 1994, pp. v + 158. Paper: $9.95.

Thee Kian Wie, Industrialisasi di Indonesia: Beberapa Kajian, LP3ES, Jakarta, pp. xxvi + 278 (including Introduction by Mari Pangestu).     

Finding a lasting cure for U.S. health care

In "Making Competition in Health Care Work" (July-August 1994), Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg, Michael E. Porter, and Gregory B. Brown ask a question that has been absent from the national debate on health care reform: How can the United States achieve sustained cost reductions while at the same time maintaining quality of care? The authors argue that innovation driven by rigorous competition is the key to successful reform. A lasting cure for health care in the United States should include four basic elements: corrected incentives to spur productive competition, universal insurance to secure economic efficiency, relevant information to ensure meaningful choice, and innovation to guarantee dynamic improvement. In this issue's Perspectives section, eleven experts examine the current state of the health care system and offer their views on the shape that reform should take. Some excerpts: "On the road to innovation, let us not forget to develop the tools that allow physicians, payers, and patients to make better decisions." I. Steven Udvarhelyi; "Health care is not a product or service that can be standardized, packaged, marketed, or adequately judged by consumers according to quality and price." Arnold S. Relman; "Just as antitrust laws are the wise restraints that make competition free in other sectors of the economy, so the right kind of managed competition can work well in health care." Edward M. Kennedy "Biomedical research should be considered primarily an investment in the national economic well-being with additional humanitarian benefits." Elizabeth Marincola.     

IS THERE A (DOWNWARD SLOPING) DEMAND CURVE FOR VOLUNTEER LABOUR?

ABSTRACT * * I would like to thank the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy and the Irwin Foundation for financial support for my dissertation, which led to many of the ideas contained in this paper, as well as my dissertation advisors at Boston College. I would also like to thank my colleagues at John Carroll University and at the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University, for their advice and comments on previous versions of this paper. All errors, however, remain my own responsibility.
: Are organizations that use volunteers content to accept all of the volunteer labour offered to them, or do they make some sort of demand-side decision as to how much volunteer labour to use? This paper looks for evidence of such a demand curve for volunteer labour in data collected by the Urban Institute in the early 1980s. Evidence is found that organizations are consistent over time in their use of volunteer labour.     

Problem-solving in teaching/learning packages for Technology

In the project Technology in Secondary Education: Problem-solving in Teaching/learning Packages, two experiments regarding a construction problem and an explanation problem were conducted, in which two variants of a teching/learning package (strongly structuredvs. weakly structured) were compared. Only with the strongly structured instructional variant of the package for the explanation problem did the pupils come to a quick solution of the problem. In both experiments, the factors that influenced the problem-solving processes of the pupils were investigated. The results are of importance for curriculum developers and the authors of teaching/learning packages for Technology but further research into the factors influencing the problem solving process of pupils is necessary.     

Training,migration, and regional income disparities

"It is assumed that there are two regions, that production requires both skilled and unskilled labour, and that one region is innately more productive than the other. Workers, who differ in their migration or training costs, make individually rational decisions. In equilibrium the ratio of skilled workers to unskilled workers is always higher in the more productive region. Average incomes differ between regions because regional differences in wage rates are reinforced by regional differences in the structure of employment. The model is also used to analyse the effects of policies intended to equalize the distribution of income."