The elaboration likelihood model: Review, critique and research agenda

European Journal of Marketing

Volumn 48, Issue 11-12, 2014, Pages 2033-2050

  Kitchen, Philip J ^a   Kerr, Gayle ^b   Schultz, Don E ^c   McColl, Rod ^a   Pals, Heather ^d  

^a RENNES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS   (France)

^b QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (Australia)

^c NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

Author keywords

Advertising theory; Communications context; Elaboration likelihood; Multi channel processing; Persuasion

Indexed keywords

EID: 84928160379     PISSN: 03090566     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/EJM-12-2011-0776     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. Ajzen, I. (1999), “Dual-mode processing in the pursuit of insight is no vice”, Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 110-181.
2. Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. (1980), Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
3. Areni, C.S. (2003), “The effects of structural and grammatical variables on persuasion: an elaboration likelihood model perspective”, Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 349-375.
4. Areni, C.S. and Lutz, R.J. (1988), “The role of argument quality in the elaboration likelihood model”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 15, pp. 197-203.
5. Barden, J. and Petty, R.E. (2008), “The mere perception of elaboration creates attitude certainty: exploring the thoughtfulness heuristic”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 95 No. 3, pp. 489-509.
6. Bitner, M.J. and Obermiller, C. (1985), “The elaboration likelihood model: limitations and extensions in marketing”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 420-425.
7. Cacioppo, J.T., Petty, R.E., Kao, C.F. and Rodriguez, R. (1986), “Central and peripheral routes to persuasion: an individual difference perspective”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 51 No. 5, pp. 1032-1043.
8. Calder, B.J. and Malthouse, E.C. (2005), “Managing media and advertising change with integrated marketing”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 43 No. 4, pp. 356-361.
9. Chaiken, S. and Maheswaran, D. (1994), “Heuristic processing can bias systematic processing: effects of source credibility, argument ambiguity, and task importance on attitude judgment”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 66 No. 3, pp. 460-473.
10. Cho, C.H. (1999), “How advertising works on the WWW: modified elaboration likelihood model”, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 33-50.
11. Choi, S.M. and Salmon, C.T. (2003), “The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion after two decades: a review of criticisms and contributions”, The Kentucky Journal of Communication, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 47-77.
12. Cialdini, R.B., Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1981), “Attitude and attitude change”, in Rosenzweig, M.R. and Porter, L.W. (Eds), Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 32, Annual Review Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 357-404.
13. Cole, C., Ettenson, R., Reinke, S. and Schrader, T. (1990), “The elaboration likelihood model (ELM): replications, extensions, and some conflicting findings”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 17, pp. 231-236.
14. Cook, A., Moore, K. and Steel, G. (2004), “The taking of a position: a reinterpretation of the elaboration likelihood model”, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 315-331.
15. Coulter, K.S. and Punj, G.N. (2004), “The effects of cognitive resource requirements, availability, and argument quality on brand attitudes: a melding of elaboration likelihood and cognitive resource matching theories”, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 53-64.
16. Crano, W. and Prislin, R. (2006), “Attitudes and persuasion”, Annual Review of Pyschology, Vol. 57, pp. 345-374.
17. Eagly, A.H. and Chaiken, S. (1993), The Psychology of Attitudes, Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, Fort Worth, TX.
18. Easley, R.W., Madden, C.S. and Dunn, M.G. (2000), “Conducting marketing science: the role of replication in the research process”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 48, pp. 83-92.
19. Evanschitzky, H., Baumgarth, C., Hubbard, R. and Armstrong, J.C. (2007), “Replication research’s disturbing trend”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 60, pp. 411-415.
20. Fishbein, M. and Ajzen, I. (1972), “Attitudes and opinions”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 23, pp. 487-544.
21. Fishbein, M. and Ajzen, I. (2010), Predicting and changing Behavior: The Reasoned Action Approach, Psychology Press (Taylor and Francis), New York, NY.
22. Greenwald, A.G. and Leavitt, C. (1984), “Audience involvement in advertising: four levels”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 11, pp. 581-592.
23. Haugtvedt, C.P. and Petty, R.E. (1989), “Need for cognition and attitude persistence”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 16, pp. 33-36.
24. Hershberger, E.K. (2003), “eELM: a replication and enhancement of the elaboration likelihood model for computer mediated environments”, Doctoral dissertation.
25. James, W.L. and Sonner, B.S. (2001), “Just say no to traditional student samples”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 41 No. 5, pp. 63-71.
26. Johnson, B.T. and Eagly, A.H. (1989), “Effects of involvement on persuasion: a meta-analysis”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 106 No. 2, pp. 290-314.
27. Kang, Y.S. and Herr, P.M. (2006), “Beauty and the beholder: toward an integrative model of communication source effects”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 33, pp. 123-130.
28. Karson, E.J. and Korgaonkar, P.K. (2001), “An experimental investigation of internet advertising and the elaboration likelihood model”, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 53-72.
29. Kerr, G. and Schultz, D. (2010), “Maintenance man or architect? The role of academic advertising research in building better understanding”, International Journal of Advertising, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 547-568.
30. Kitchen, P.J. (Ed) (2010), Integrated Brand Marketing and Measuring Returns, Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke.
31. Kitchen, P.J. (Ed) (2013), The Dominant Influence of Marketing in the 21st Century: The Marketing Leviathan, Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke.
32. Kruglanski, A. and Orehek, E. (2009), “Toward a relativity theory of rationality”, Social Cognition, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 639-660.
33. Kruglanski, A.W. and Thompson, E.P. (1999), “Persuasion by a single route: a view from the unimodel”, Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 83-109.
34. Leippe, M.R. and Elkin, R.A. (1987), “When motives clash: issue involvement and response involvement as determinants of persuasion”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 269-278.
35. Liu, Y. and Shrum, L.J. (2009), “A dual-process model of interactivity effects”, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 38 No. 2, pp. 53-68.
36. Lord, K.R., Lee, M.S. and Sauer, P.L. (1995), “The combined influence hypothesis: central and peripheral antecedents of attitude toward the ad”, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 73-85.
37. MacKenzie, S.B., Lutz, R.J. and Belch, G.E. (1986), “The role of attitude toward the ad as a mediator of advertising effectiveness: a test of competing explanations”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 23, pp. 130-143.
38. Malaviya, P. (2007), “The moderating influence of advertising context on ad repetition effects: the role of amount and type of elaboration”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 32-40.
39. Miller, C.E., Reardon, J., Salciuviene, L., Auruskeviciene, V., Lee, K. and Miller, K.E. (2009), “Need for cognition as a moderator of affective and cognitive elements in online attitude toward the brand formation”, Journal of Business and Economics Research, Vol. 7 No. 12, pp. 65-72.
40. Mongeau, P.A. and Stiff, J.B. (1993), “Specifying causal relationships in the ELM”, Communication Theory, Vol. 3, pp. 61-72
41. Mongeau, P.A. and Williams, M.L.M. (1996), “Argument quality and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion”, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Chicago, IL.
42. Monroe, K.B. (1991), “On replications in consumer research: part 1”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 19, June.
43. Monroe, K.B. (1992), “On replications in consumer research: part 2”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 19, September.
44. Morris, J.D., Woo, C.M. and Singh, A.J. (2005), “Elaboration likelihood model: a missing intrinsic emotional implication”, Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 79-98.
45. O’Keefe, D.J. (1990), Persuasion: Theory and Research, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA.
46. Parloff, R. (1993), The Dynamics of Persuasion, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.
47. Pasadeos, Y., Phelps, J. and Edison, A. (2008), “Searching for our ‘own theory’ in advertising: an update of research networks”, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 85 No. 4, pp. 785-806.
48. Petty, R.E. (2006), “A metacognitive model of attitudes”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 33, June, pp. 22-25.
49. Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1979), “Issue involvement can increase or decrease persuasion by enhancing message-relevant cognitive responses”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 37 No. 10, pp. 1915-1926.
50. Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1981a), Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches, Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers, Dubuque, IA.
51. Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1981b), “Issue involvement as a moderator of the effects on attitude of advertising content and context”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 8, pp. 20-24.
52. Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1983), “Central and peripheral routes to persuasion: application to advertising”, in Percy, L. and Woodside, A.G. (Eds), Advertising and Consumer Psychology, D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, MA, pp. 3-23.
53. Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1984), “Source factors and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 11, pp. 668-672.
54. Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1986), Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change, Springer-Verlag, New York, NY.
55. Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1990), “Involvement and persuasion: tradition versus integration”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 107 No. 3, pp. 367-374.
56. Petty, R.E. and Priester, J.R. (1994), “Mass media attitude change: implications of the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion”, in Bryant, J. and Zillmann, D. (Eds), Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 99-122.
57. Petty, R.E. and Wegener, D.T. (1999), “The elaboration likelihood model: current status and controversies”, in Chaiken, S. and Trope, Y. (Eds), Dual Process Theories in Social Psychology, Guilford Press, New York, NY, pp. 44-72.
58. Petty, R.E., Cacioppo, J.T. and Schumann, D. (1983), “Central and peripheral routes to advertising effectiveness: the moderating role of involvement”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 10, pp. 135-146.
59. Petty, R.E., Cacioppo, J.T., Sedikides, C. and Strathman, A.J. (1988), “Affect and persuasion: a contemporary perspective”, The American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 355-371.
60. Petty, R.E., Cacioppo, J.T., Strathman, A.J. and Priester, J.R. (2005), “To think or not to think: exploring two routes to persuasion”, in Brock, T.C. and Green, M.C. (Eds), Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives, 2nd ed., Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 81-116.
61. Petty, R.E., DeSteno, D. and Rucker, D.D. (2001), “The role of affect in attitude change”, in Forgas, J.P. (Ed), Handbook of Affect and Social Cognition, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 212-233.
62. Petty, R.E., Fabrigar, L.R. and Wegener, D.T. (2003), “Emotional factors in attitudes and persuasion”, in Davidson, R.J., Sherer, K.R. and Goldsmith, H.H. (Eds), Handbook of Affective Sciences, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 752-772.
63. Petty, R.E., Haugtvedt, C.P. and Smith, S.M. (1995), “Message elaboration as a determinant of attitude strength”, in Petty, R.E. and Krosnick, J.A. (Eds), Attitude Strength: Antecedents and Consequences, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
64. Petty, R.E., Kasmer, J.A., Haugtvedt, C.P. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1987), “Source and message factors in persuasion: a reply to stiff’s critique of the elaboration likelihood model”, Communication Monographs, Vol. 54, pp. 233-249.
65. Petty, R.E., Wegener, D.T. and Fabrigar, L.R. (1997), “Attitudes and attitude change”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 48, pp. 609-647.
66. SanJosé-Cabezudo, R., Gutiérrez-Arranz, A.M. and Gutiérrez-Cillán, J. (2009), “The combined influence of central and peripheral routes in the online persuasion process”, CyberPsychology and Behavior, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 299-308.
67. Schumann, D.W., Kotowski, M., Ahn, H. and Haugtvedt, C. (2011), in Moriarty, S. (Ed), The Elaboration Likelihood Model: A Thirty Year Review.
68. Schumann, D.W., Kotowski, M.R., Ahn, H.-Y. and Haugtvedt, C. (2012), “The elaboration likelihood model: a 30-year review”, in Rodgers, S. and Thorson, E. (Eds), Advertising Theory, Routledge, NY, pp. 51-68
69. See, Y.H.M., Petty, R.E. and Evans, L.M. (2009), “The impact of perceived message complexity and need for cognition on information processing and attitudes”, Journal of Research in Personality, Vol. 43, pp. 880-889.
70. Sinclaire, J.K., Simon, J.C. and Wilkes, R.B. (2010), “A prediction model for initial trust formation in electronic commerce”, International Business Research, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 17-27.
71. Stephenson, M., Benoit, W. and Tschida, D. (2001), “Testing the mediating role of cognitive responses in the ELM”, Communication Studies, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 324-337.
72. Stiff, J.B. (1986), “Cognitive processing of persuasive message cues: a meta-analytic review of the effects of supporting information on attitudes”, Communication Monographs, Vol. 53, pp. 75-89.
73. Stiff, J.B. and Boster, F.J. (1987), “Cognitive processing: additional thoughts and a reply to Petty, Kasmer, Haugtvedt, and Cacioppo”, Communication Monographs, Vol. 54, pp. 250-256.
74. Stiff, J.B. and Mongeau, P.A. (1994), Persuasive Communication, Guildford Press, New York, NY.
75. Szczepanski, C.M. (2006), “General and special interest magazine advertising and the elaboration likelihood model: a comparative content analysis and investigation of the effects of differential route processing execution strategies”, Doctoral dissertation.
76. Tam, K.Y. and Ho, S.Y. (2005), “Web personalization as a persuasion strategy: an elaboration likelihood model perspective”, Information Systems Research, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 271-291.
77. Teeni-Harari, T., Lampert, S.I. and Lehman-Wilzig, S. (2007), “Information processing of advertising among young people: the elaboration likelihood model as applied to youth”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 326-340.
78. Trampe, D., Stapel, D.A., Siero, F.W. and Mulder, H. (2010), “Beauty as a tool: the effect of model attractiveness, product relevance, and elaboration likelihood on advertising effectiveness”, Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 12, pp. 1101-1121.
79. Truong, Y., McColl, R. and Kitchen, P. (2010), “Practitioners’ perceptions of advertising strategies for digital media”, International Journal of Advertising, Vol. 29 No. 5, pp. 709-725.
80. Wicherts, J.M. and Bakker, M. (2012), “Publish (your data) or (let the data) perish! Why not publish your data too?”, Intelligence, Vol. 40 No. 2, p. 73.
81. Wicherts, J.M., Borsboom, D., Kats, J. and Molenaar, D. (2006), “The poor availability of psychological research data for reanalysis”, American Psychologist, Vol. 61 No. 7, pp. 726-728.
82. Yang, S.C., Hung, W.C., Sung, K. and Farn, C.K. (2006), “Investigating initial trust toward e-tailers from the elaboration likelihood model perspective”, Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 23 No. 5, pp. 429-445.
83. Coulter, K. (2005), “An examination of qualitative vs quantitative elaboration likelihood effects”, Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 31-49.
84. Eckert, J.A. and Goldsby, T.J. (1997), “Using the elaboration likelihood model to guide customer service-based segmentation”, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, Vol. 27 Nos 9-10, pp. 600-615.
85. Enis, B.M., Cox, K.K. and Stafford, J.E. (1972), “Students as subjects in consumer behavior experiments”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 9, pp. 72-74.
86. Gotlieb, J.B. and Swan, J.E. (1990), “An application of the elaboration likelihood model”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 221-228.
87. Madden, C.S., Easley, R.W. and Dunn, M.G. (1983), “How journal editors view replication research”, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 23, Winter, pp. 78-87.
88. Madden, T.J., Ellen, P.S. and Ajzen, I. (1992), “A comparison of the theory of planned behavior and the theory of reasoned action”, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 18, pp. 3-9.
89. Morris, C.D., Bransford, J.D. and Franks, J.J. (1977), “Levels of processing vs transfer appropriate processing”, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 519-533.
90. Schultz, D.E. and Kerr, G. (2008), “Filling in the gaps or plugging the holes? Why the academic advertising research model needs maintenance”, presented at the European Advertising Academy Annual Meeting, Antwerp Belgium.
91. Schumann, D.W., Petty, R.E. and Clemons, D.S. (1990), “Predicting the effectiveness of different strategies of advertising variation: a test of the repetition-variation hypotheses”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 17, pp. 192-202.
92. Shuptrine, F.K. (1975), “On the validity of using students as subjects in consumer behavior investigations”, The Journal of Business, Vol. 48, pp. 383-390.
93. Swasy, J.L. and Munch, J.M. (1985), “Examining the target of receiver elaborations: rhetorical question effects on source processing and persuasion”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 11, pp. 877-886.