A closer investigation of dispositional persuasion knowledge of sponsored content: Exploring determinants and clusters

Abstract

Persuasion knowledge (PK) has become an essential construct to understand how sponsored content affects audiences. As limited or undeveloped PK makes people vulnerable to persuasion, it is crucial to understand which factors determine people’s dispositional PK of sponsored content. This study aims to (1) explore whether individual factors and medium type determine people’s levels of dispositional PK, and (2) identify subgroups with different levels of PK and estimate the prevalence of these groups. Results from a cross sectional survey (N = 614) show that need for cognition, education, age, medium usage, and medium type determine individual levels of conceptual and/or attitudinal PK. Thus, individual levels of dispositional PK of sponsored content depend on one’s ability and motivation to process information and one’s experience with sponsored content. Furthermore, based on a cluster analysis with three central components of dispositional PK (i.e., understanding tactic, self-reflective knowledge, and scepticism), we present four distinct groups: the Naïve (the largest group), the Critical Realists, the Uncritical Realists, and the Invulnerables. Our findings reveal that there are different types of consumers, and improve our theoretical understanding of who have better developed dispositional PK of sponsored content.