Measuring consumer attitudes using text highlighting: methodological considerations

Direct attitude questions occupy a central position in consumer research despite concerns over validity and reliability. Text highlighting is an alternative method where participants use highlighter functions to indicate content that they ’ike’ and ’dislike’ as they read a text. Jaeger et al. (2022) [Food Qual Prefer, 95, 104356] introduced this approach and the present research investigated it methodologically to further assess its potential for attitude measurement. There were two research questions (RQ) that asked whether: 1) highlighting responses
are independent of text characteristics (length, content); and 2) consumers’ attitudes are altered by the process of
completing the highlighting task. Data were collected in an online survey on vertical farming (VF) where 1466 UK consumers took part. For RQ1, results showed that word highlighting frequency was altered by textual context and decreased for longer texts. The sentiment scores for sentences were also altered, but the characteristics about VF that consumers responded positively and negatively to were minimally influenced by text length and content. For RQ2, results showed that completion of the text highlighting task did not influence attitudes to VF, meaning that the task of highlighting did not introduce response bias. Collectively, the findings of the present research further support that text highlighting has potential for attitude measurement.

Información sobre Derechos de Autor

(Por favor lea este aviso antes de abrir los documentos u objetos)

La legislación uruguaya protege el derechode autor sobre toda creación literaria, científica o artística, tanto en lo que tiene que ver con sus derechos morales, como en lo referente a los derechos patrimoniales con sujeción a lo establecido por el derecho común y las siguientes leyes (LEY 9.739 DE 17 DE DICIEMBRE DE 1937 SOBRE PROPIEDAD LITERARIA Y ARTISTICA CON LAS MODIFICACIONES INTRODUCIDAS POR LA LEY DE DERECHO DE AUTOR Y DERECHOS CONEXOS No. 17.616 DE 10 DE ENERO DE 2003, LEY 17.805 DE 26 DE AGOSTO DE 2004, LEY 18.046 DE 24 DE OCTUBRE DE 2006 LEY 18.046 DE 24 DE OCTUBRE DE 2006)