The effects of increased cognitive involvement on college students' interpretations of magazine advertisements for alcohol

An experiment with 520 college students tested whether heightened awareness of cognitive processes during media exposure would affect the message interpretation process by enhancing skepticism, with the enhanced skepticism influencing both affective and cognitive aspects of decision making. Skepticism has affective and logical components, which can be represented by trust (more affective) and perceived realism (more logical), and skepticism's effects on affective and logical decision making are manifested somewhat differently. The results of this study suggest that a minimal intervention that activates skepticism can have both direct and indirect effects on the message interpretation process that can improve the quality of decision making.