The Effect of Good-ending and Bad-ending Stories on Brand Evaluation in Evaluative Conditioning and the Mediating Role of the Need for Affect

Abstract

To date, only one study by Strick and Volbeda (2018), titled ‘When the valence of unconditioned stimuli evolves over time: Evaluative conditioning with good-ending and bad-ending stories’, investigated stories in the context of evaluative conditioning to change brand attitudes. To find additional support for stories as unconditioned stimuli, we performed a partial replication of this study. As an extension, we also investigated the role of the need for affect as a mediator in this conditioning process. Our study had a within-subject design, in which MTurk workers (N = 66) participated in both our good- and bad-ending story conditions. In line with the original study and our hypothesis, our results suggest that the valence of the story ending determines the direction of the conditioning effect. Brands presented after good-ending stories have a stronger brand liking than brands presented after bad-ending stories. In practice, this would imply that advertisements should always end positively to induce a positive brand evaluation. Furthermore, as we hypothesized, our results indicate that the need for affect mediates this conditioning effect as people with a high need for affect rate brands more emotionally and strongly according to the story-ending valence than people with a low need for affect. Future research may distinguish other characteristics that mediate this effect to identify separate groups for targeted advertisements. To conclude, the ending of dramatic stories is determinative in brand evaluation when the brand is presented directly after, and the effect of these story endings is mediated by the need for affect.