Facts or feelings: The persuasive effects of the conceptual and affective meaning of adjectives in coherent texts

Copy-writers often use adjectives with a positive affective meaning such as 'brilliant'. Experiments presenting adjectives in isolation have shown these adjectives to be capable of influencing subjects' attitudes through a conditioning process. An experiment was conducted as to whether adjectives with a positive affective meaning are capable of influencing readers' attitude when presented in a coherent text. In the experiment, 313 participants read a travel ad that was manipulated by substituting adjectives like 'beautiful' for adjectives like 'snowy'. The amounts of conceptual and affective meaning of the adjectives were rated in separate studies. The participants' need for cognition was measured to distinguish between readers more or less inclined to scrutinize the arguments. Participants with a higher need for cognition were convinced more by texts containing more conceptual meaning, whereas those with a lower need did not respond differently to varying amounts of affective meaning. When presented within a coherent text, adjectives such as 'beautiful' had no (positive) persuasive effect.