Abstract Although loneliness is very common in modern society, little research has focused on the effects of loneliness on some important marketing variables, for example the persuasion of advertising. 3 experiments that recruited participants from Mainland China or Hong Kong showed that message framing (prevention framing vs. promotion framing) and loneliness interact to predict the persuasion of advertising. Specifically, when the advertising uses prevention framing, loneliness strengthens the persuasion of advertising, whereas when the advertising uses promotion framing, this effect reverses itself. What underlies these effects is that loneliness significantly increases consumers’ pessimism that further enhances the persuasion of advertisings with prevention framing but undermines the persuasion of advertisings with promotion framing, such that loneliness has positive indirect effect on the persuasion of prevention-framed advertisings but has negative indirect effect on the persuasion of promotion-framed advertisings via pessimism. The current research not only uncovers a new and important antecedent of advertising persuasion but also provides new knowledge regarding how loneliness affects individuals’ cognitive features.
