Contextual Influences on Message Persuasion: The Effect of Empty Space

Abstract

The empty space that surrounds a text message can affect the message's persuasiveness.Seven studies provide converging evidence in both field and laboratory settings that people find a message less persuasive, and are less likely to act on its implications, when it is surrounded by empty space than when it is not. These effects are mediated by perceptions of message strength.That is, message recipients infer that a message conveys a less strong opinion when empty space surrounds it and are consequently less likely to accept its implications. This effect does not occur when the space surrounding the message is generated randomly by a computer or when the message is attributed to a low credibility source. When a message is counterattitudinal, surrounding it by empty space decreases the disposition to counterargue its implications and increases acceptance of the position advocated. When recipients are under cognitive load, however, they use the space surrounding the message as a heuristic basis for judgment and are less persuaded when the message is surrounded by empty space. This research adds not only to persuasion literature and current advertising practices, but also to an understanding of different interpretations of empty space.

Active White Space (AWS) in Logo Designs: Effects on Logo Evaluations and Brand Communication

“…4 Additionally, the current studies focus only on the effect of adding AWS to pictorial logo designs. The amount of AWS between the logo design and other brand aspects (such as the brand name) could also make for interesting future research (Kwan, Dai, and Wyer Jr. 2017;McQuarrie and Phillips 2016). 4 Lack of color in our logo designs serves as another limitation.…”

“…Presence of PWS draws attention to a design and enhances its noticeability further in cluttered advertising scenarios (Olsen, Pracejus, and O'Guinn 2012). Overall, advertising research suggests that PWS isolates a design, making it cleaner, more aesthetic, sophisticated, and tasteful (Kwan, Dai, and Wyer Jr. 2017;Olsen, Pracejus, and O'Guinn 2012).…”

Is Creative Description Always Effective in Purchase Intention? The Construal Level Theory as a Moderating Effect

“…For instance, it focuses only on text descriptions of products. Future studies might take a more comprehensive look at how text descriptions combine with other elements of presentation, such as product images (including the use of anthropomorphism in advertising of brands Aggarwal and Mcgill, 2012 ; Wan et al, 2017 ) or the empty space surrounding the presentation (Kwan et al, 2017 ). Moreover, this paper only finds small effect sizes for the persuasiveness of creative product descriptions and merely examines construal level as a moderator of text description styles' divergent effects on purchase intention.…”

Influence of white space on text scanning

“…If there is no colour, it means that there was no fixation in that part of the screen at a particular moment. The following figures (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10) show the heat maps for every group, in five representative moments. At the beginning of each collective observation, we notice established movements from the upper-left edge of the page to the field of interest.…”