Emotional Quotient Scale Eq And Reaction Profile

An important dimension of ad recall is emotional appeal. Wells (1964a) developed two scales that assess emotional reaction to ads. The first is the Emotional Quotient Scale (EQ), which measures a "global" emotional reaction toward ads, and the second is the Reaction Profile, which assesses three specific emotional reactions toward ads:

Attractiveness

the physical appeal of the ad. Meaningfulness: the degree to which the ad delivers a message the respondent understands, will accept, and will find personally significant.

Development

For the EQ, items were generated such that they would discriminate between high and low appeal ads. Then, 100 consumers rated the items with respect to 18 to 24 print ads designed to differ in emotional appeal over three progressive refinement procedures. Item analysis was performed over the three procedures, and the 12-item EQ was derived.

Samples

For the EQ, a sample of 100 consumers was used to develop the scale. For the Reaction Profile, a sample of 100 housewives responded to the "Son of EQ" items, and a sample of 600 housewives responded to the total Reaction Profile for scale development and refinement. Two more samples of 190 housewives and 950 consumers responded to the Reaction Profile for assessing predictive validity (Wells 1964a).