Companion Datasets (Study 1 & Study 2): Driving Sustainable Choices—Warning Messages in Car Ads and Their Effects on Attention and Emotions

This record contains the two anonymized datasets and accompanying documentation for the article Driving Sustainable Choices: The Impact of Warning Messages in Car Advertisements on Consumer Attention and Emotional Responses. The research examines how message framing (gain vs. loss) and warning format (text vs. image) shape visual attention (eye-tracking) and emotional/evaluative responses (self-reports) in static car advertisements. We provide one dataset per study:

• Study 1 (between-subjects, lab eye-tracking) — participants were randomly assigned to a gain-framed or loss-framed ad. Primary outcomes are AOI-level fixation metrics (e.g., fixation duration, fixation count) for text and image warning elements; environmental concern was measured as a moderator.

• Study 2 (within-subjects, self-reports) — each participant evaluated both ads. Outcomes include valence, arousal, dominance (SAM), subjective attention (internal vs. external), and perceived effectiveness, alongside environmental concern and basic sociodemographics.

Files in this record

• Study_1_final.sav — Eye-tracking dataset for Study 1 (lab).

  • Core variables (high-level): participant ID (anonymized), condition assignment (gain vs. loss), AOI-level fixation metrics for warning-text and warning-image (e.g., total fixation duration [ms], fixation count), environmental concern (scale), data-quality indicators.

• Study_2_final.sav — Self-report dataset for Study 2 (survey/ratings).

  • Core variables (high-level): participant ID (anonymized), ad identifier/order, SAM valence/arousal/dominance, subjective attention (internal–external), perceived effectiveness, environmental concern (scale), sociodemographics.

Methods snapshot

• Stimuli & AOIs. Static car ads for a virtual brand to avoid trademark issues; standardized size and colors. Warnings included both text and image elements aligned to the assigned frame. AOIs for warning-text and warning-image were predefined and used consistently across participants.

• Eye-tracking (Study 1). Recorded with Tobii Pro hardware (60 Hz) and parsed in Tobii Pro Lab® using I-VT (≥ ~60 ms). Primary metrics are AOI-level fixation duration and count.

• Self-reports (Study 2). SAM (valence/arousal/dominance; 9-point), subjective attention (internal–external), perceived effectiveness (Likert), plus environmental concern and sociodemographics.

• Analytic orientation. Study 1 focused on multivariate comparisons of AOI metrics across framing conditions; Study 2 modeled within-person differences across ads, testing main effects and the role of environmental concern.