A Study Of Advertising Psychology Research In The 20^th Century

The purpose of this study is to entirely investigate the development and trends of international advertising psychology research in the 20th century, to provide new guidance for the establishment of advertising psychology theory and advertising activities, and to supply a theoretic guide for the development and improvement of advertising psychology research of China. The articles on advertising psychology which were collected in PsycINFO CD database were selected as analysis samples. Content analysis was used for this literature review.The study found out:①Advertising psychology research has increased quantitatively decade after decade in the second half of the 20th century.②The eleven fields of advertising psychology research were studied differently by the researchers. Psychological mechanism of advertising, consumers' perception of advertising and advertising effects & measurements were the emphases of the research, and psychological mechanism of advertising was the top one which gained the most attention.③The eleven research fields showed five typical trends in different decades. The proportion of advertising effects & measurements field dropped all through the second half of the 20th century; the proposition of psychological mechanism of advertising field dropped dramatically in the 1970s,and then climbed rapidly in the 1980s and the 1990s; consumers' perception of advertising almost kept in the same level, the proportion fluctuated within an small range; media contact psychology was zooming to a climax in the 1970s, then fell sharp in the 1980s, and returned steadily in the 1990s; brand equity fell continuously in the 1970s and the 1980s, and then increased dramatically in the next decade.④The research to consumers' psychology took an extremely large part in advertising psychology research all the time, and more and more research on advertising disseminators' psychology started from the 1980s.⑤The attention degree to different research themes within every field was not equal. In psychological mechanism of advertising field, attitude was of the most importance; in consumers perception of advertising field, recognition and recall were the hotspots; in advertising effects & measurements field, measurements of advertising effectiveness gained much more attention, and copy testing was the most popular method; in media contact psychology field, TV and magazine were the emphasis, especially TV. Website was the later comers but its proportion was almost to be equal to that of magazine.⑥Quantitative method was the principal research method, and among them experiment and survey were the main methods, and the proportion of the two summed to 86.5%.⑦America was the super country of advertising psychology research, whether quantitatively or qualitatively. There was no relevant research on advertising psychology research in China.