Prior involvement and incentives to pay attention to information

Abstract

Abstract This study examined whether or not a persons's level of prior involvement affects his or her response to an incentive to pay attention to product information. The assumption that an incentive adds to the effect of a person's level of prior involvement (summative model) was compared to the assumption that high initial involvement would inhibit the effect of an incentive (threshold model). Seventy‐eight undergraduate subjects participated. Half were given an extra‐credit incentive to pick the best one of four described electronic typewriters; the other half were not. The incentive caused subjects to pay attention more and remember more about the products. Consistent with the threshold model, the incentive caused subjects with low prior involvement to spend more time studying the product descriptions, and it did not have an effect on the high‐involvement people.