Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing - Volume 43, Issue 1, 2021

“This post is sponsored”. The interplay between sponsorship disclosure position, its wording, and brand prominence in blogs

Research has repeatedly shown that disclosures in sponsored content activate people’s persuasion knowledge and consequently impact brand recall and brand attitude. However, prior research did not show clear effects of the wording and positioning of disclosures. Remarkably little research has been conducted to examine the interaction of both disclosure characteristics systematically. Furthermore, while brand prominence could well cause variations in the effects of disclosures, little attention has been paid to the role of brand prominence in sponsored content. The current study therefore aimed to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms behind the effects of sponsorship disclosure position, its wording, and brand prominence in blogs on readers’ processing. An online experiment using a 2 (disclosure wording: explicit / implicit) by 2 (disclosure position: beginning / end) by 2 (brand prominence: high / low) between subjects design (n = 274) revealed an implicit disclosure at the beginning of the blog enhances conceptual persuasion knowledge more compared to positioning at the end of a blog, while the opposite was found for explicit disclosures. These interaction effects of sponsorship disclosure wording and position indirectly enhance brand recall without being evaluated negatively by readers, but only if the content’s brand prominence was low. The implications of these findings for research on sponsorship disclosure are discussed.

The effect of female job titles on the credibility of medical specialists

Speakers of Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands often use masculine job titles for female professionals. We tested the influence of gender(in)congruent job titles on the credibility of medical specialists in Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands. More specifically, we investigated whether the credibility of female medical specialists is boosted by referring to them with a masculine job title (e.g., neuroloog ‘neurologist (masc.)’) as opposed to a feminine job title (e.g., neurologe ‘neurologist (fem.)’). We also tested if this effect is moderated by participant gender.

We constructed three news articles in which a medical specialist – either a neurologist, oncologist or a surgeon – shared their opinion on a health topic. The medical specialist was referred to by either the masculine or the feminine job title, thereby being incongruent or congruent with the female medical specialist’s actual gender, respectively. After having read the article, participants had to rate the medical specialist on several dimensions, based on which we calculated the health professional’s perceived credibility.

The results of this study showed a significant difference between female and male participants regarding the influence of gender(in)congruent job titles on the credibility of medical specialists. Women perceived male and female medical specialists as equally credible, regardless of their job titles. Men, on the other hand, evaluated the credibility of female medical specialists to be lower when they were referred to with a masculine job title. Gender congruent job titles thus increase female medical specialists’ credibility from the perspective of men.

Open to reason: how good are people at reasoning with arguments?

A phenomenon that has become clearer through social media is that people often gather with like-minded others to strengthen their opinions. In such circumstances, people do not respond in a reasonable way to the arguments of others or even completely ignore the opinions of those who think differently. But what does it mean to reason reasonably with arguments? What exactly can we expect from people? And how good are we at reasoning with arguments? Studies have shown that people can be sensitive to norms for reasonable arguments. Standpoints are more likely to be accepted if they are supported by arguments that meet normative standards. Whereas people may thus be open to reason, dealing with norms can be culture dependent. This finding creates a fascinating field of tension between absolute norms and the relativity of cultures.