(The lack of) fluency and perceptions of decision making

Abstract

Research consistently finds that fluent stimuli in marketing communications are better liked and more trusted than more difficult to process stimuli. This paper describes four studies showing that the attitudes towards difficult-to-process stimuli increase significantly when compared to the easy-to-process stimuli, thus adding to the growing ‘disfluency’ literature. We show that attitudes increase towards a less fluent option when individuals misattribute the extra effort, spent in processing the information, to the decision making rather than the stimuli itself. The studies have important theoretical implications for understanding the mechanism by which lack of processing fluency influences attitude formation, and, have practical implications for understanding how and when to use disfluent stimuli in marketing communications.