Visualizing, thinking, and feeling through interactivity: Effects of interactivity on user engagement, attitudes, and beliefs toward anti-smoking messages

This study attempts to reveal theoretical mechanisms by which interactivity features on an anti-smoking website influence individuals' attitudes and beliefs toward anti-smoking messages on the site. Interactivity is operationalized as modality interactivity (i.e., the degree to which users control the medium) and message interactivity (i.e., the degree to which the messages from the medium are contingent upon users' input). Three types of user engagement - imagery engagement (the ease with which participants can picture the effects of smoking in their mind), cognitive engagement (the degree to which participants engage in message elaboration), and emotional engagement (the degree of fear and arousal that participants feel while browsing the site) - are suggested as key mechanisms by which interactivity influences persuasion.;A 3 (Message interactivity: High vs. Medium vs. Low) X 2 (Modality Interactivity: Slider vs. Control) fully factorial lab experiment was performed to test the persuasive effects of interactivity on the stimulus website (N = 167). Results showed that modality interactivity led to more positive interface assessment and greater cognitive absorption. These two outcomes, in turn, contributed to more favorable attitudes toward the website and even toward the anti-smoking messages. Modality interactivity also enhanced the feeling of presence and imagery engagement, which in turn, resulted in more favorable attitudes toward the anti-smoking messages and a perception of smoking as a less attractive behavior. As for emotional engagement, modality interactivity caused greater fear appeal, especially when there was no message interactivity on the website. The presence of modality interactivity tended to reduce the amount of message-related thoughts after browsing. In contrast, message interactivity enhanced message elaboration for participants, especially those with low involvement in the message topic. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.