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A Framework for
Conceptualizing and Measuring the
Involvement Construct
in Advertising Research

J.

Craig Andrews
Srinivas Durvasula
Syed H. Akhter

Adequately conceptualizing and measuring the involvement construct has been one of the most
controoersial topics in advertising research. This task is especially important given the many
involvement-driven frameworks (e.g., the elaboration likelihood model) now being advanced in
advertising. The present study proposes a framework that closely scrutinizes the inoolvement
constructs antecedents, state properties, measures, potential confounds, and consequences. Four
emerging research streams in involvement are presented in the context of the framework. Implications for researchers attempting to manipulate and measure inoolvement in experimental
advertising research are provided.

J. Craig Andrews

The conceptualization and measurement of involvement has long been an important and controversial topic for advertising researchers. It is especially important because of the recent advancement and testing of many involvementdriven models in advertising, such as the elaboration likelihood model (Petty and
Cacioppo 1981a; 1983; 1986), the attitude-toward-the-ad model (Lutz 1985; Mitchell, and Olson 1981; Shimp 1981), and the integrated information response model
(Smith and Swinyard 1982; 1983). However, involvement is also controversial due
to the many different proposals and ideas for conceptualizing (cf., Andrews 19BB;
Antil 1984; Cohen 1983; Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo 1978, 19B5; Greenwald
and Leavitt 1984; Houston and Rothschild 1978; Krugman 1966-1967; Lastovicka
and Gardner 1979; Mitchell 1979, 1981; Park and Young 1986; Wright 1973, 1974;
Zaichkowsky 1986) and measuring the involvement construct (cf., Bloch 1981;

Celsi and Olson 19BB; Laczniak, Muehling, and Grossbart 1989; Laurent and
Kapferer 1985; Wells 19B6; Zaichkowsky 1985). There have been noteworthy
attempts to reconcile these differences by separately examining: involvement models
(e.g., Mitchell 19B1; Zaichkowsky 19B6), involvement state properties (e.g., Cohen
1983; Mitchell 1981), empirical examples of involvement manipulations (e.g., Laczniak, Muehling, and Grossbart 1989), and illustrations of the operationalization
of advertising involvement (e.g., Andrews 1988). However, what is really needed
is a comprehensive, detailed, and operational framework that helps integrate these
separate involvement issues by clearly examining the underlying properties of the
involvement construct, and that separates the construct from its many antecedents,
consequences, and potential confounding or related constructs. A clarification of
this nature would be of value to advertising researchers seeking to conceptualize,
manipulate, and measure involvement in their own research.
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a framework that closely
scrutinizes the involvement construct's antecedents, state properties, measures,
related constructs, and consequences. The framework's relationship to four emerging streams of research in involvement is then presented to help reconcile the
many proposals and ideas for conceptualizing and measuring involvement. Implications for those attempting to manipulate and/or measure involvement in

(Ph.D., University of South
Carolina) is assistant professor of marketing,
Marquette University.

Srinivas Durvasula (Ph.D., University of
South Carolina) is assistant professor of
marketing, Marquette University.
Syed H. Akhter (Ph.D., University of
Oklahoma) is assistant professor of marketing,
Marquette University.
The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful
comments and suggestions by Terence A.
Shimp on an earlier version of the manuscript.


©}oumal of Advertising

Volume 19, Number 4, Page 27-40


experimental advertising research are
also provided.

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The Framework
A necessary condition for adequately
measuring a construct is to first precisely specify the domain of the construct. As suggested by Churchill
(1979), "The researcher must be exacting in delineating what is included in
the definition and what is excluded" (p.
67). Unfortunately, in the case of involvement, many researchers have not
defined the domain of the construct,
nor provided manipulation checks in
experimentation with involvement.
The position taken in this paper is
that involvement is an individual, internal state of arousal with intensity,
direction, and persistence properties.
(Note: For those interested in the conceptualization of involvement as a process, see Greenwald and Leavitt 1984.)
The focus of involvement is on the individual consumer. That is, it is the individual consumer who is involved, not
products, or advertising content, media, objects, or situations. The consumer's internal state of arousal determines
how he/she responds to stimuli, such
as advertisements or products. (Note:
While some authors [ef., Mitchell 1981]
have defined involvement in the context of motivational properties evoked

by a particular stimulus or situation,
our definition focuses on individual
arousal levels with respect to stimuli.)
This internal state of arousal, activation, or preparedness can be separated from its numerous antecedents
and consequences as depicted in our
framework in Figure 1. The framework provides a nomological network
of relationships among involvement
antecedents, state properties, related
constructs, and consequences. (A
"nomological network" refers to the
predicted pattern of theoretical relationships that helps define a construct;
Cook and Campbell 1979, p. 70.) It is
apparent that the primary problem in
defining the domain of the involvement
construct is that numerous antecedents and consequences of involvement
have been confused with involvement
28

per se. For example, it would be a precarious assumption to treat cognitiveresponse activity as an indicant (v. consequence) of the state of involvement.
The reasoning is that cognitive-response generation can be the result of
a multitude of factors beyond one's level of involvement, including one's accessibility of thoughts, response opportunity, general verbosity, and personality traits (Wright 1980). Furthermore,
as suggested by Cohen (1983), if cognitive responses were synonymous with
the involvement construct, there would
be no need for such a construct. Care
should also be taken not to define involvement as risk or familiarity (antecedents/related constructs), or to label
involvement as "cognitive involvement," "emotional involvement," or
"behavioral involvement" (consequences). In summary, it would be inappropriate to conclude that the state
of involvement can be inferred by the
virtue of measuring involvement antecedents or consequences. Rather,
measures attempting to tap the state (v.

antecedents or consequences) of involvement are preferable. For example,
in an experiment manipulating involvement in a particular advertisement, manipulation checks can be
included to measure the intensity or
degree to which an individual felt he/
she was engaged in, engrossed in, absorbed by, paid attention to, concentrated on, carefully examined, thought
about, focused on, or was involved in
the particular advertisement in question.
A closer examination of Figure 1 reveals numerous antecedents to involvement grouped into personal and
situational/decision factors. For example, studies by Petty and Cacioppo
(1986) have manipulated the personal
relevance of advertised products and
measured differing levels of a person's
need for cognition. These factors can
serve to drive one's involvement toward an advertised product or issue at
hand. Furthermore, factors such as
one's opportunity to process (e.g., due to
distraction, media type, etc.) and ability
to process (e.g., due to product knowledge, familiarity, etc.) can serve to limit

or constrain the impact of these involvement antecedents on the involvement state (cf., Andrews 1988; Batra
and Ray 1986). Numerous consequences of manipulated involvement
levels have also been determined, including a greater number of total and
directed cognitive responses (Park and
Young 1986; Petty and Cacioppo 1979),
more elaborate and complex encoding
strategies (Celsi and Olson 1988), significant effects on recall and recognition measures (Leigh and Menon 1987),
and persuasion that is more enduring,
predictive of behavior, and resistant to
counter-propaganda (Petty and Cacioppo 1986).


The position taken in
this paper is that
involvement is an
individual, internal
state of arousal with
intensity, direction,
and persistence
properties.

As an internal state of arousal, involvement has three major properties:
intensity, direction, and persistence (cf.,
Bettman's 1979 motivational mechanisms; Shimp 1982). While these involvement properties are grounded in
motivation, we feel that motivation
represents a broader construct than involvement. As such, motivation refers
to forces/drives ("motivational properties"-Mitchell 1981; "motivational
aspects"-Cohen 1983) that move one
from an initial state to a desired state
(Bettman 1979). These forces/drives
help direct arousal or activation levels
toward stimuli, and play an important
role in facilitating involvement-related
outcomes or consequences (e.g., message-oriented thoughts; message-argument recall; Petty, Cacioppo, and
Schumann 1983; Wright 1973).


FIGURE 1
A Framework for the Conceptualization and Measurement of the Involvement Construct

Antecedents:


Consequences:

a. Personal needs, goals and char-

a. Search behavior
• increased search and shopping behavior
• increased complexity of decision process
• greater time spent examining alternatives
• greater perceived product
attribute differences

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acteristics
• personal goals, values, and consequences
• cultural values
• degree to which the object has
ego-related significance
• personal relevance of the object
• importance of the object
• personality factors (e.g., need for
cognition)
b. Situational and decision factors
• purchase occasion
• object usage
• perceived risk of decision
• size of decision consequences
• imminence of decision
• degree of decision irrevocabUity
• degree of personal responsibility associated with decision


j-

I
I
I

Related Constructs:
• opportunity to process (e.g., distraction, media type)
• ability to process (e.g., knowledge,
famUiarity)

J

I
I
J

I

1

Involvement:
• intensity
• direction
• persistence

b. Information PTocessing
• increased total and directed
cognitive-response activity

• greater number of personal
connections
• more elaborate encoding
strategies
• increased recall and comprehension
c. Persuasion
• if present with cogent arguments, greater central (v.
peripheral) attitude change
• attitude change that is more
enduring, predictive of behavior, and resistant to
counter persuasion

NOTE: Solid arrows represent direct influences, while the double-ruled arrow represents a mediating influence.

By involvement intensity, we mean
the degree of arousal or the preparedness of the involved consumer with respect to the goal-related object. That
is, the involved consumer has a certain
degree of arousal to engage in specific
information-processing or goal-related
behaviors. However, intensity refers to
the arousal level and not the actual processing or behaviors that remain as
consequences of involvement. This intensity level should also be thought of
as operating on a continuum, as opposed to "high" or "low" levels of involvement. This is an important
distinction since "moderate" levels of
involvement have all but been ignored
in experimental research. A notable
exception, however, is based on a stream
of research on source effects in persuasion (Heesacker, Petty, and Caciop-

po 1983; Puckett, Petty, Cacioppo, and

Fisher 1983).As suggested by Petty and
Cacioppo (1986), source (and peripheral) factors can influence the extent of
message processing when the personal
relevance of a message is moderate or
ambiguous.
The direction of involvement refers
to the target of the involvement intensity level. That is, direction refers to
the stimulus (e.g., issue, product, advertisement) toward which the arousal
is channeled (cf., Mitchell 1981). This
definition differs from the previous use
of direction to refer to the amount of
cognitive and behavioral activity related to the stimulus or goal-object (ef.,
Bettman 1979; Gardner, Mitchell, and
Russo 1978; Park and Young 1986). The
rationale is that cognitive and behavioral activity remains a consequence (as

opposed to an indicator) of the state of
involvement. The antecedent conditions of involvement (e.g., purchase occasions, personal relevance, risk, etc.)
will first help determine the consumer's involvement direction or goal-object selected. For example, in an
experiment heightening subjects' perceived relevance of an ad's message
content, the direction of their involvement should be toward the content of
the ad and not toward background cues
found in the ad. This can be checked
by a measure of their relative concentration on ad content versus background cues (e.g., endorsers, music,
colors) in the ad (Wright 1973, p. 57).
Involvement persistence refers to the
duration of the involvement intensity.
Depending upon the different categories of involvement, there will no

29



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doubt be varying persistence levels. For
example, long-time car enthusiasts,
health "nuts:' wine connoisseurs, or ski
"bums" would be expected to be higher in involvement persistence than
those under situational involvement
states (cf., Bloch 1981; Celsi and Olson
1988). The recognition of enduring involvement is important because the focus of work on involvement conceptualizations may be limited to involvement definitions that are situational or
transitory in nature. While the involvement levels in the preceding examples endure over time, the level of
persistence for situational involvement
is expected to decline when the ultimate goal is achieved, or when the situation changes (Celsi and Olson 1988).
With situational involvement, this level
of persistence is also expected to be
greater for high- versus low-involvement subjects. In particular, persuasive
effects (e.g., attitude changes, attitudebehavioral intention correlations) are
predicted to be more persistent under
high versus low involvement (Petty and
Cacioppo 1986, pp, 175-178). For example, brand beliefs were found to influence brand attitudes for highinvolvement subjects on both immediate and delayed measures (Muehling
and Lacmiak 1988). Under low involvement, however, these effects did
not occur. Given these properties, antecedents, and consequences of involvement, we now turn our attention
to the relationship of our framework
to previous involvement conceptualizations and measures grouped on the
basis of four emerging streams of research in involvement.

Conceptual and
Measurement Issues: Four
Research Streams

Conceptual Issues. Given the importance of involvement as an integral
moderating condition in advertising research, it is somewhat disconcerting to
see numerous, conflicting conceptual
and operational definitions of the involvement construct. However, this
frustrating situation is not as hopeless
30

as it first appears, in that some underlying commonalities can be observed.
For example, we have identified four
major groupings of involvement conceptualizations and have labeled these
as: (1) attention/processing strategies,
(2) personal/situational involvement, (3)
audience/process involvement, and (4)
enduring/product involvement. These
four research streams are directly related to our framework in that the attention/processing strategies field has
contributed to the examination of the
state of involvement (e.g., involvement
intensity and direction), the personal/
situational and enduring/product involvement streams have contributed to
the manipulation and/or measurement
of involvement antecedents, while the
audience/process involvement stream
has advanced our knowledge of the
consequences of involvement (e.g., cognitive responses, message-argument recall) that require varying levels of
attentional capacity.
Table 1 provides a chronological
sample of conceptual definitions of involvement categorized and grouped on
the basis of the four research streams.
The rationale for the involvement definition groupings is as follows. Studies
included under attention/processing

strategies have proposed involvement
conceptualizations accounting for both
the level of attention and the direction
of processing (e.g., brand v. non-brand
processing; cf., Gardner, Mitchell, and
Russo 1978). That is, attention and
processing are viewed as critical stages
in information acquisition, influenced
by the level and direction of involvement (Mitchell 1981). For example, under high involvement, individuals are
expected to devote all attention to the
advertisement and execute a brandprocessing strategy. Under low involvement, individuals either do not allocate
attention to the advertisement or they
invoke a non-brand-processing strategy. Research definitions examining
Mitchell's (1979; 1981)extension of this
field, expressing involvement as a state
(v. process) construct, are also included
in this category (e.g., Andrews 1988;
Cohen 1983; Lacmiak, Muehling, and
Grossbart 1989). An important dis-

tinction should be made, however, between attention/processing strategies
and audience/process involvement (e.g.,
Greenwald and Leavitt 1984; Krugman
1966-1967). As Mitchell (1981, p. 27)
indicates:
Krugman defines involvement as one
of the dimensions of the' type of processing that occurs during exposure
to the advertisement. In contrast, I
define involvement as a particular
state of the individual at a point in

time. Our state variable conceptualization of involvement affects the
type of processing that occurs during exposure ...
Similarly, Greenwald and Leavitt (1984,
p. 590) indicate that: "Mitchell's (1979)
interpretation of involvement in terms
of varying arousal appears to fit least
well with our analysis." This is because
Greenwald and Leavitt (1984) view involvement as a process represented by
four process-involvement levels (i.e.,
preattention, focal attention, comprehension, and elaboration), each requiring greater attentional capacity. In
contrast, Mitchell's (1979; 1981) involvement state serves to influence (as
opposed to represent) these process
stages or levels.
The second research stream, personal/situational involvement, represents a
collection of involvement definitions
based on the idea that issues, situations,
or messages can have significant consequences on, or be personally relevant to,
one's own life (Apsler and Sears 1968).
Recent research regarding the personal/situational-involvement field is extensive (cf., Petty and Cacioppo 1981b;
1986; Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann
1983) and makes use of personal relevance (and other) manipulations to induce varying levels of involvement and
subsequent persuasion. While the attention/processing-strategies field has
contributed to our understanding of involvement-state properties, personal/
situational-involvement research has advanced our knowledge regarding the
role of antecedents (e.g., personal relevance, need for cognition, personal responsibility, etc.) in involvement-induced
persuasion.


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TABLE 1
Conceptual Definitions of Involvement
Study
Focus
A. AttentionfProcessing Strategies

Definition

Gardner, Mitchell, and
Russo (1978)

advertising

1. high-inllolliement learning (brand set): the interest in the product category
is high and the consumer is actively processing the information in the
advertisement to reach an overall evaluation of the advertised brand (p.
584).
2. low-inllOlliement learning (nonbrand set):
a) strategy-limited: the person processes the advertisement with other than
a (brand) evaluation strategy. A trace of the advertisement is stored in
episodic memory. (p. 584)
b) attention-limited: the advertisement does not receive enough attention
for it to be fully perceived or evaluated. (p. 584)

Mitchell (1979, p. 194;
1981, p. 25)

stimulus

An individual level, internal state variable that indicates the amount of arousal,

interest, or drive evoked by a particular stimulus or situation. Involvement,
therefore, has two dimensions, intensity and direction. (p. 194)

Cohen (1983)

stimulus

A state of activation directed toward some portion of the person's psychological field. (p. 326)

Andrews (1988)

message

An individual, internal state of arousal with intensity and direction properties. (p. 24)

Laczniak, Muehling, and
Grossbart (1989)

advertising

The motivational state of an individual induced by a particular stimulus or
situation. (p. 30)

B. Personal/Situational Involvement
Sherif and Cantril (1947)

object

ego-inllOlliement: when any stimulus or situation is consciously or uncon-


sciously related to [the contents of the ego] by the individual. (p. 117)
Zimbardo (1960)

response

response inllOlliement: the individual's concern with the consequences of his/
her response or with the instrumental meaning of his/her opinion. (p. 87)

Apsler and Sears (1968)

issue

personal inllolliement: the expectation of an issue to have significant consequences for an individual's own life. (p. 162)

Wright (1973)

advertising

content-processing inllolliement: when a person is confronted by an advertisement which he/she perceives as particularly relevant to an impending decision. (p. 55)

Houston and Rothschild
(1978)

situational

situational inllOlliement: the ability of a situation to elicit from individuals
concern for their behavior in that situation. (p. 184)

Petty and Cacioppo
(1981b)


message, issue

In high-inllOlliement situations, the persuasive message under consideration
has a high degree of personal relevance to the recipient, whereas in lowinllolliement situations, the personal relevance of the message is rather trivial.
(p.20)

Burnkrant and Sawyer
(1983)

message

A motivational state based on the message receiver's need for information
and the meaningfulness of the message content. (pp. 57-58)

Celsi and Olson (1988)

situation

situational sources of personal releeance (SSPR): a wide variety of specific

stimuli, cues, and contingencies in a consumer's immediate environment that
activate or are closely associated with self-relevant consequences, goals and
values. (pp. 211-212)
C. Audience/Process Involvement
Krugman (1966-1967)

advertising

adlieTtising inllOlliement: the number of "connections," conscious bridging

experiences, or personal references per minute, that the subject makes between the content of the persuasive stimulus and the content of his/her own
life. (p. 584)

Houston and Rothschild
(1978)

response

response inllOlliement: the complexity or extensiveness of cognitive and behavioral processes characterizing the overall consumer decision process. It is
the result of situational and enduring involvement. (p. 185)
Table continued

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TABLE 1 (Continued)
Conceptual Definitions of Involvement
Study

Focus

Definition

Leavitt, Greenwald, and
Obermiller (1981)

processing


1. high inlloillement: The interpretations of high involvement as cognitive
responding or as establishing personal connections are grouped together
as variations on the theme of encoding elaboration. (p. 17)
2. low inllOlliement: ... "we are inclined to identify low involvement ... with
the achievement of focal attention, accompanied by minimal encoding"
(p. 17).

Batra and Ray (1983)

message

message-response inllOlliement: a situational state measured or calibrated by
the depth and quality of message-evoked cognitive responses. (p. 309)

Greenwald and Leavitt
(1984)

audience

audience inllOlliement: the allocation of attentional capacity to a message source,
as needed to analyze the message at one of a series of increasingly abstract
representational levels. (p. 591)

Park and Young (1986)

information
processing

1. cognitille inllOlliement: the degree of personal relevance of message contents
or issue based on the brand's functional performance (utilitarian motive).

(p.12)
2. ajfectille inllOlliement: the degree of personal relevance of a message based
on emotional or aesthetic appeals to one's motive to express an actual or
ideal self-image to the outside world (value-expressive motive). (p. 12)
3. low inllOlliement: a lack of focused mental processing in evaluating a message. (p. 14)

Baker and Lutz (1987)

advertising

1. adllertising-message inllOlliement: a motivational construct embodying the
amount of cognitive effort directed by the consumer at processing the
contents of an advertising message. (p. 75)
2. adllertising-execution inllOlliement: a motivational construct embodying the
degree of cognitive effort directed by the consumer at processing the
executional properties of an advertising stimulus without regard to their
brand relatedness. (p. 80)

Leigh and Menon (1987)

audience

audience inlloillement: ... "the level of attention and depth of processing (i.e.,
focus on sensory versus semantic features) should serve to define the level
of audience involvement." (pA)

D. Enduring/Product Involvement
Day (1970)

object


The general level of interest in the object or the centrality of the object to
the person's own ego-structure. (p. 45)

Bowen and Chaffee (1974)

product class

product inlloillement: a direct outgrowth of the potential benefits or rewards
the product holds for the consumer. (p. 615)

Houston and Rothschild
(1978)

individual and
situation

enduring inlloillement: reflects the strength of the pre-existing relationship
between an individual and the situation in which the behavior will occur.
(p. 184)

Lastovicka and Gardner
(1979)

product class

Involvement is best thought of in terms of two underlying components:
a) norrnzmve importance: how connected or engaged a product class is to an
individual's values. (p. 68)
b) commitment: the pledging of binding of an individual to his/her brand

choice. (p. 68)

Bloch (1981)

product class

product inllOlliement: a construct which affects consumer behavior on an
ongoing basis. (p. 62)

Zaichkowsky (1985)

object (i.e., product
class, advertisements, purchase
decisions)

A person's perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values,
and interests. (p. 342)

Celsi and Olson (1988)

individual knowledge and
experience

intrinsic sources of personal relevsnce (ISPR): are relatively stable, enduring
structures of personally relevant knowledge, derived from past experience
and stored in memory. (p. 212)

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A primary element in the audience/
process-involvement stream of research
is the notion of audience involvement.
As defined by Greenwald and Leavitt
(1984, p. 591), " ... audience involvement is the allocation of attentional capacity to a message source, as needed
to analyze the message at one of a series
of increasingly abstract representation
levels." These increasingly abstract and
complex representations are viewed as
levels of involvement in this research
stream. The idea is that low-involvement levels (e.g., preattention, focal attention) use little capacity, while higher
levels of involvement (e.g., comprehension, elaboration) require greater capacity. Therefore, research proposing
definitions of involvement as a threestage processing sequence (Leavitt,
Greenwald, and Obermiller 1981), or
as a four-level process (Greenwald and
Leavitt 1984), is included in the audience/process-involvement research
stream. Studies defining involvement
in processing terminology, such as cognitive responses, connections, cognitive effort, or cognitive and affective
needs (e.g., Baker and Lutz 1987; Batra
and Ray 1983; Krugman 1966-1967;
and Park and Young 1986) have also
been included in this research stream.
"Connections" and other cognitive activity generated from advertising differ
from the "personal relevance of advertising information" in that personal
relevance (e.g., due to a planned purchase) can lead to a higher state of involvement, and subsequently, to a
greater number of "connections" and
increased cognitive-response activity.
As indicated by Krugman (1966-1967,

pp. 587-589), "connections" represent
the number of actual thoughts/references per minute that relate advertising
information to a person's own life.
These "connections" (as an involvement consequence) should be more
prevalent when the information in the
ad is personally relevant (an involvement antecedent).
Finally, the product-involvement field
(e.g., Bloch 1981; Bowen and Chaffee
1974; Day 1970; Zaichkowsky 1985)has
been integrated with enduring involvement (Celsi and Olson 1988; Houston

and Rothschild 1978) because the preexisting experience and knowledgestructure terminology found in enduring-involvement definitions also plays
an important role in product-involvement conceptualizaitons (ef., Bloch
1981). In this research stream, individuals are viewed as having relatively stable and enduring involvement levels
with a particular stimulus (e.g., a product class). This notion differs from other definitions of involvement (e.g.,
attention/processing strategies; personal/situational involvement) that view
involvement as situationally-spectfic or
transitory in nature.

. . . the primary
problem in defining
the domain of the
involvement construct
is that numerous
antecedents and
consequences of
involvement have
been confused with
involvement per se.


Table 2 provides a summary examination and comparison of each involvement research stream on the basis of its
origin, evolution, theoretical basis, primary focus, state versus process, dimensionality, and primary contribution and
relationships to our proposed framework presented in Figure 1. Interestingly, several commonalities emerge from
the comparisons, especially in the examination of the theoretical bases for the
streams. For example, Kahneman's
(1973) theory of attention (with his
arousal and capacity dimensions), and
Greenwald's (1968) cognitive-response
theory play important roles in both attention/processing strategies and audience/process-involvement research
streams, even though the streams differ

with respect to their state v. process orientation. Also, the enduring/productinvolvement field has relied upon the
other three streams for its theoreticai
development (e.g., its major theoretical
work includes Greenwald and Leavitt
1984; Mitchell 1979; Petty and Cacioppo 1981a; and Sherif and Cantril 1947;
ef., Celsi and Olson 1988; Zaichkowsky
1985). However, most commonalities
end here, leaving clear differences across
the streams on their primary focus, contribution and relationship to our framework (see Table 2).
Measurement Issues. Perhaps more
troublesome is the review of involvement measures that have been developed and applied in advertising and
consumer research. Table 3 provides a
sample of these measures, incorporating two perspectives: measurement
scales and manipulation checks. These
measures have also been organized
around the four streams of research in
involvement. The enduring/productinvolvement stream accounts for most
involvement measurement scales listed,
while contributions from the other

three streams are found in the sample
of involvement manipulation checks.

Measurement scales. An examination of measurement scales in Table 3
reveals that the product-involvementscale approaches are quite diverse,
ranging from ingenious methods to tap
product interest (Buchanan 1964), to
the use of "proxy" measures to infer
product involvement (Bowen and Chaffee 1974; Tyebjee 1979), to scales employing rigorous procedures suggested
by Churchill (1979) in developing, purifying, and validating scales (cf., Bloch
1981; Zaichkowsky 1985). The latter
validation attempts are preferred in order to have better confidence in the
degree to which our measures assess
the involvement construct. However,
the validation of multi-item scales of
product involvement is not without its
problems. For example, the construction of general measures of product involvement (e.g., Zaichkowsky's 1985
PIl) aid in the generalizability of such
scales across product categories
33


TABLE 2
A Comparison of Four Research Streams In Involvement
Research Streams
Audience/Process

Enduring/Product

Involvement


InllOlvement

Sherif and Cantril
(1947)

Krugman (19661967); Leavitt,
Greenwald, and Obermiller (1981)-3
processing sequences

Product: Day (1970)
Enduring: Houston
and Rothschild
(1978)

Mitchell (1979; 1981);
Gardner, Mitchell,
and Russo (1985); Lacmiak, Muehling, and
Grossbart (1989)

Apsler and Sears
(1968); Petty and Cacioppo (1981a; 1986)

Greenwald and Leavitt (1984; Bloch
1985)-4 levels of involvement

Product: Bloch (1981);
Zaichkowsky
(1985)
Enduring: Celsi and

Olson (1988)

Theoretical
Basis:

HI: Wright (1973)
Greenwald (1968)
Atten. Ltd. LI:
Kahneman (1973)
Strategy Ltd. LI: Tulving (1972)

Social Judgment Theory; Elaboration Likelihood Model

Attention: Kahneman (1973)
Levels of Processing:
Craik and Lockhart (1972)
Cognitive Response
Theory: Greenwald
(1968)
Info. Processing
Stages: McGuire
1969)

Product: Greenwald
and Leavitt (1984;
Mitchell (1979);
Petty and Cacioppo
(1981a)
Enduring: Sherif and
Cantril (1947)


Primary
Focus:

stimuli within
advertising

issues, situations, advertising message content

processing stages, audience involvement

product-class relevance, the individual

State vs,
Process:

state

state

process

state measures (e.g.,
Zaichkowsky's 1985

Dimensionality:

Bi-dimensional: Level
of attention, direction
of processing


Unidimensional: individual's level of personal relevance with
message- or Issue-related information

Unidimensional: increasing capacity required for
increasingly complex
representations

Primarily a unidimensional intent (Bloch
1981; Zaichkowsky
1985), however some
are bi-dimensional
(Lastovicka and Gardner 1979)

Primary contribution and
relationship to
our framework
(Figure 1):

involvement state

involvement antecedents (e.g., personal relevance, need for
cognition, personal responsibility)

involvement consequences requiring different attentional
capacities

involvement antecedents

Distinguishing


Attention/Processing
Strategies

Personal/Situational
Involvement

Origin:

Gardner, Mitchell,
and Russo (1978)

Evolution:

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Characteristics

PII)

(v. product-specific scales, e.g., Bloch
1981). Recently, however, questions
have arisen regarding the unidimensionality of such general product-involvement measures (cf., McQuarrie
and Munson 1987; Mittal 1989; Zaichkowsky 1987). This is due, in part, to
the problem of separating affect from
product involvement in such measures.
Other problems arise when involvement antecedents (e.g., risk) or con-

34


sequences (e.g., consumption behavior)
are measured as product involvement.
Rather, the construction of multiple
items with slightly different shades of
meaning of involvement (e.g.,
_
means a lot to me;
is important to me) may be preferable in the
development of product-involvement
measurement scales. Perhaps the most
challenging task for advertising researchers developing involvement-

measurement scales is to maintain the
correspondence between the intended
domain of the involvement construct
and the subsequent generation of sample items from this domain.
Manipulation checks. Advertising
researchers manipulating the involvement construct face the difficult task
of developing involvement manipulation checks that successfully tap the


TABLE 3
Involvement Measures in Advertising and Consumer Research
Study

Scale

Focus

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A. Measurement Scales: EnduringjProduct Involvement
Buchanan (1964) (see
also Zinkhan and
Fornell 1989)

product
interest

A product-interest scale is developed based on the respondent's relative preferences for seeing short films about the products in question. Consumers
are asked to indicate (out of a balanced triad of product film titles) which
product film they are most likely to view (2 points) and which they are least
likely to view (0 points; 1 point for the product not mentioned). Each product
is presented four times, for a possible range of a to 8 for a given product.

Bowen and Chaffee (1974)

product class

Seven measures of product involvement:
• number of brands
• styling differences
• product performance
• price
• importance of purchase
• dealer brand specialization
• substitutability of brands

Tyebjee (1979)


product class

Vaughn (1980; 1986)

product class

Seven measures of product involvement:
• average weekly consumption
• perceived product differentiation
• perceived image differentiation
• self-reported knowledgeability
• interest in product information
• endorsement/attitude toward using product
• brand awareness
Two dimensions:
1. product categori:tation
• importance of decision
• risk of choosing wrong brand
• thought required in decision
2. think/feel dimension
• logical/objective decision
• decision based on functional facts
• decision based on feeling
• decision expresses personality
• decision not based on senses

Bloch (1981)

product class


17-item, product involvement scale for car enthusiasts

Laurent and Kapferer
(1985)

product class

Zaichkowsky (1985; 1987)

product class (advertising, purchase decision)

19-item, consumer-involvement profile tapping:
• product importance
• risk importance
• risk probability
• pleasure
• sign value
20-item bipolar adjective scale

Wells (1986)

advertising

domain of the involvement category
manipulated in the study. The challenge facing researchers manipulating
involvement in advertising is to provide rigorously developed manipulation checks following accepted

la-item R (relevance) scale

psychometric procedures (cf., Churchill 1979; Gerbing and Anderson 1988;

Perdue and Summers 1986; Peter 1981).
As indicated in Table 3, the manipulation checks vary greatly, although
commonalities can be detected within

Table continued

each research stream. For example, attention/processing strategies assess
both intensity and direction (i.e., brand
v. non-brand processing) properties of
the state of involvement (Gardner,
Mitchell, and Russo 1978; Laczniak,

35


TABLE 3 (Continued)
Involvement Measures in Advertising and Consumer Research
Study

Focus

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B. Manipulation Cheeks
1. Attention/processing Strategies
Gardner, Mitchell, and
advertising
Russo (1978; 1985);Gardner (1985)

Lacmiak, Muehling, and

Grossbart (1989)

advertising message

Manipulation

Manipulation Checks

1. HI (brand set) Ss were instructed to examine ads as if they were
planning a purchase of the product class or brand in the ad.
2. LI (non-brand set) Ss were instructed to examine grammatical
style in the ad copy to discern
its ability to attract attention.

1. response times
2. attribute evaluation
3. attention criteria

1. HI Ss were instructed to pay
close attention to claims in ads
in order to evaluate each brand.
2. LI Ss were instructed to pay close
attention to overall appearance
and writing style of ads.

1. 5-item index of message attention (Andrews 1988)
• attention to
• notice of
• concentration on
• involved with

• thought put into
2. 6-item index of brand and nonbrand processing

2. Personal/Situational Involvement
Wright (1973; 1974)

advertising

1. HI Ss expected to make a shortrun decision about the product
in the ad.
2. LI Ss did not expect to make
this decision.

Subjects were asked if they concentrated most on the advertisement or feature story.

Petty and Cacioppo
(1981b)

advertising message

1. HI Ss expected the advertised
product to soon be introduced
in their area. They were also
asked to evaluate the ad.
2. LI Ss expected the advertised
product to be introduced in a
distant region.

none reported


Petty, Cacioppo, and
Schumann (1983)

advertising message

1. HI Ss were told the advertised
brand would soon be test marketed in their city and were told
they would soon have to make
a choice in the advertised brand's
product class.
2. LI Ss were told the advertised
brand would be test marketed in
a distant region and they would
have to make a choice in an unrelated product class.

recall of gift expected

Celsi and Olson (1988)

felt involvement: ad
message (SSPR) and
product class (ISPR)

SSPR:

Measured the influence of SSPR,
ISPR (as measured by Zaichkowsky's 1985 PIl) on felt intlOlvement (a
2-item measure of ad importance
and ad linkage with needs, cf., Wells
1986).


36

a) HI Ss were told to look at ads
as if they were seeing them in
a magazine at home. However,
they were to make a choice in
the advertised product category for use in a lottery.
b) Baseline Ss were told only to
look at ads as if they were
seeing them in a magazine at
home.

Table continued


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TABLE 3 (Continued)
Involvement Measures in Advertising and Consumer Research
Study

Focus

Manipulation

Manipulation Checks

Andrews and Shimp
(1990); Andrews and

Durvasula (forthcoming)

advertising message

1. HI Ss expected: the advertised
brand to be test marketed in
their city, a gift choice in the advertised brand's product category, and the possibility of an
interview to determine if they
read the ad claims.
Z. LI Ss expected: the advertised
brand to be test marketed in a
distant region, and a product gift
choice in an unrelated product
class.

1. 6-item index of message involvement:
• amount of attention
• degree of concentration
• level of thought
• degree of focus
• level of effort
• extent to which they carefully
read the ad
Z. relative concentration on claims
in the ad versus people in the
ad

3. Audience/Process Involvement
Krugman (1966-67)


advertising

Manipulated: medium (magazinevs.
TV), product advertised (airline vs.
margarine), interest of surrounding
editorials (4 different editorials), and
instructional set (editorial vs. advertising).

Number of connections (i.e., recalled thoughts that came to mind
when looking at the ad) per ad and
per number of seconds looked at
the ad.

Park and Young (1986)

information processing:
• cognitive involvement
• affective involvement
• low involvement

1. Cognitive-involvement Ss were
asked to watch a commercial as
if they were trying to learn about
the product's benefits and effectiveness.
Z. Affective-involvement Ss were
told to study the commercial as
if they were going to purchase
the product based on emotion
and personal image.
3. LI Ss were told to watch the

commercial assuming a friend of
theirs was seriously ill.

1. recall of performance attributes
Z. Subjects' image-relevant
thoughts
3. Subjects' irrelevant thoughts

Leigh and Menon (1987)

audience involvement

1. Intentional-learning (HI) subjects were told the initial questions were for a baseline measure
of memory performance, as they
should attempt to memorize the
contents of the ad.
Z. Incidental-learning (LI) subjects
were initially asked a series of
reaction and evaluation questions about an ad and, therefore,
did not expect subsequent memory tests.

1. percentage of respondents attempting to memorize the ad
Z. percentage of respondents expecting additional questions to
be asked

Muehling, and Grossbart 1989). However, the attention/processing strategies field has also used distraction, an
opportunity-to-process variable (see
Figure I), to induce attention-limited
low involvement. Therefore, confound
checks (cf., Andrews 1988; Perdue and

Summers 1986) may be needed to de-

termine if subjects' opportunity to process has been inadvertently limited due
to distraction in the involvement manipulation. While the personal/situational-involvement research stream has
provided excellent examples of involvement manipulations through antecedent conditions (e.g., personal rele-

vance of advertising content), that
stream has also lacked the use of more
rigorous measures of attention/processing strategies to determine if, in fact,
subjects were more involved in the
content of the advertised message. Finally, the audience/process-involvement research stream has contributed

37


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to the specification of information-processing consequences of involvement
levels (e.g., preattention, focal attention, comprehension, and elaboration),
each requiring greater attentional capacity. Researchers attempting to manipulate and/or measure advertising
involvement may gain valuable knowledge from the strengths of the involvement-research streams (i.e., the
manipulation of involvement antecedents, measurement of involvement state
properties, and assessment of involvement consequences).

Implications for
Advertising Researchers
Several recent theories applied in advertising research (e.g., the attitude-toward-the-ad model; the elaboration
likelihood model) have made key theoretical predictions based upon the intensity and direction of one's involvement in an advertised message.
However, numerous (and sometimes
conflicting) conceptual definitions and

measures of involvement make it quite
difficult for advertising researchers attempting to include this construct in
their own research. Adding to this difficulty are temptations to simply infer
that involvement has been successfully
manipulated by examining its effects on
dependent measures (e.g., cognitive responses, attitude change).
Therefore, the primary objective of
this paper was to help provide a sharper focus on the involvement construct
by proposing a framework that helped
clarify its possible antecedents, consequences, related constructs, and underlying properties (i.e., intensity,
direction, and persistence). To assist researchers in comparing involvement
definitions, manipulations, and measures, we have organized the many ideas
related to involvement into four
emerging streams of research: attention/processing strategies, personal/
situational involvement, audience/process involvement, and enduring/product involvement. It is hoped that the
organization of the involvement definitions within our conceptual framework will increase the accessibility (and

38

comparability) of ideas for future advertising-involvement research. As such,
our paper extends previous work on advertising involvement (e.g., Laczniak,
Muehling, and Grossbart 1989) by providing: (1) a nomological network of relationships
among
involvement
antecedents, involvement consequences, related constructs, and underlying properties of involvement; (2) an
examination of intensity, direction, and
persistence properties of involvement;
and (3)an organization of the numerous
involvement definitions, manipulations,
and measures based on the four, previously mentioned, streams of research in

involvement. Further, our synthesis of
the research in the enduring/product
involvement area should be of particular interest to advertising researchers,
because it extends previous advertising
involvement work that has focused on
situational/transitory definitions of involvement (cf., Laczniak, Muehling, and
Grossbart's [1989] Table 1 examples).
Perhaps the major implication of our
paper for advertising researchers is that
we should be careful not to assume or
infer that our involvement manipulations have been successful or that our
involvement measures are valid. Rather, we should consider the following
suggestions:

1. Clearly define the domain and
focus of the involvement construct studied, including intensity, direction, and persistence
properties.
2. Develop manipulation-check
measures that tap the domain of
the involvement construct. Make
sure to separate the manipulation-check measures from antecedents, consequences, and
related constructs of involvement.
3. Estimate the dimensionality, reliability, and validity of the manipulation-check measures.
4. Report not only results of manipulation checks, but results of
confounding checks for advertising involvement, as well.
With these conceptual and empirical
suggestions in mind, our proposed

framework can provide a springboard
for future advertising research examining different combinations of antecedent conditions (e.g., risk, need for

cognition, personal responsibility), involvement state properties (e.g., moderate levels of involvement intensity),
related constructs (e.g., ability and opportunity to process), and involvement
consequences (e.g., search behavior,
persuasion).
The study of interrelationships
among the research streams within our
involvement framework should also be
of value to advertising researchers. For
example, will enduring product involvement have a stronger impact than
situational product involvement on
measures of the involvement-state
properties? How will the manipulation
of different personal-relevance antecedents affect the four levels of involvement (i.e., preattention, focal attention,
comprehension, and elaboration)?
What is the role of related constructs
(e.g., ability and opportunity to process) for each research stream in the
manipulation and/or measurement of
involvement? Such research efforts will
contribute to our understanding of exactly how and under what conditions
advertising involvement operates, and
will advance the study of involvementdriven frameworks in advertising research.

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Receilied September 15,1989. Revision accepted
for publication May I, 1990.