Abstract

This study examined the influences of need for cognition, exposure frequency, and product type on the attitude change toward a brand name which does not contain any information about the product. And to examine if the attitude change under conditions of mere exposure of brand name is mediated by cognitive process, expectancy-value measures were taken as well as the liking for the product(the direct measure of attitude). The analysis of variance based on three way mixed design was performed to examine the effects of need for cognition, exposure frequency, and product type for the two measures separately. The changes in attitudes were analyzed for both of the measures separately. The major finding was as follows: For the expectancy-value measures which measured the cognitive structure, the effect of exposure frequency was also significant. Expectancy-value measures increased as the exposure increased. It implies that although the brand name carried no information about the product explicitly, the increase in the exposure frequency influenced the cognitive structure about the product. The result was in support of the cognitive-affective hypothesis which argue that the mere exposure effect is an attitude change based on cognitive process.