Business

Neuroscience

Advertising

Misattribution of memory

Cognition

Cognitive psychology

Psychology

Affect (linguistics)

Programming language

Novelty

Curiosity

Computer science

Ambiguity

Communication

Social psychology

International Journal of Advertising

First, this research investigates the curiosity-evoking potential of different curiosity triggers (information gaps, ambiguity, and novelty) that are both described by the fundamental literature on curiosity and frequently applied in marketing practice. Second, it aims to shed light on affective and cognitive processes that are elicited by curiosity. The authors present two experimental studies and show that not all commonly used triggers stimulate curiosity. Moreover, the results reveal that the effect of curiosity on attitude towards the advertised product is mediated by heightened positive expectations, and under some circumstances, also by increased positive affect. This suggests that a rather uncritical expectation-driven evaluation and a misattribution of process-induced positive emotions are responsible for the positive effect.

Curiosity-inducing advertising: how positive emotions and expectations drive the effect of curiosity on consumer evaluations of products