Objective: To determine if participants reading messages matched to a preferred style of message argument respond more favorably than participants reading unmatched messages.
Design: Randomized trial using telephone and in-person surveys and cognitive response interviews.
Setting: University campus.
Participants: Of 125 initially interested, a convenience sample of 100 university employees completed the study (female: 88%, white: 94%, mean age: 43.7).
Intervention(s): Participants read 2 print messages written with cognitive (COG) (fact based) or affective (AFF) (story based) arguments.
Main outcome measure(s): 7-point Likert scale ratings of message appeal, understandability, persuasiveness, and relevance according to classification into 1 of 4 message groups: COG-AFF (mismatched to affective), AFF-COG (mismatched to cognitive), COG-COG (matched cognitive), and AFF-AFF (matched affective).
Analysis: 1-way analysis of variance (P < or = .05) and systematic review of qualitative interviews.
Results: The COG-AFF group consistently gave the lowest ratings to the affective messages and the AFF-COG group generally gave high scores compared with other message groups. Participants also expressed a desire for more factual information.
Conclusions and implications: A combination of cognitive and affective arguments may be appealing to subjects with an affective preference but disliked by individuals who prefer only a fact-based approach. Argument format may be an important message design consideration.