Driving Sustainable Choices: The Impact of Warning Messages in Car Advertisements on Consumer Attention and Emotional Responses

This file provides the anonymized data and materials underlying the article Driving Sustainable Choices: The Impact of Warning Messages in Car Advertisements on Consumer Attention and Emotional Responses. The research integrates Cognitive Load, Prospect, and Self-Efficacy theories to examine how message framing (gain vs. loss) and warning format (text vs. image) influence visual attention (eye-tracking) and emotional/evaluative responses (self-reports) to environmental warnings embedded in static car advertisements. Two complementary studies were conducted: (i) a lab eye-tracking experiment (between-subjects; N = 41) and (ii) a within-subjects survey assessing emotions, internal/external attention, and perceived effectiveness (N = 91). Environmental concern was modeled as a moderator.

Stimuli use a virtual brand and study-specific artwork to avoid trademark issues; they are included solely for academic replication and teaching. Note that AOI sizes differ between text and image (documented above), which may affect fixation counts; we therefore advise focusing on fixation duration for robustness checks.

All procedures complied with the Declaration of Helsinki and were approved by the University of Granada Research Ethics Committee. Written informed consent was obtained. Participants in Study 1 received €15. All data in this deposit are anonymized.