The Power of Affect: Predicting Intention

This robust structural modeling study, with over 23,000 responses to 240 advertising messages, found that affect when measured by a visual measure of emotional response dominates over cognition for predicting conative attitude and action. FOR DECADES marketing and advertising profes-sionals and researchers have been struggling with two important questions: What is more predictive of consumer intent—thoughts or feelings? And, in the tripartite of cognitive, affective, conative atti-tudes does cognitive attitude dominate and does it mediate the relationship between affect and intent? Affect is clearly one component of attitude and a force in persuasion. Petty and Cacioppo (1981) have defined attitude as, “a general and enduring positive or negative feeling about some person