K. Szabó Áron (2025): Cselekvésre ösztönzés a közösségi média üzenetekben: A reaktancia vizsgálata. In: Szalkai Zsuzsanna – Bíró-Szigeti Szilvia – Iványi Tamás – Kelemen-Erdős Anikó (eds.): Tudományágak kaleidoszkópja – a marketing, mint transzdiszciplináris terület. Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem, Gazdaság- és Társadalomtudományi Kar: Budapest. ISBN: 978-615-112-035-4 pp. 270–271.

Authors

• Áron, K. Szabó. Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem.

Abstract

Call-to-Action in social media advertisement: An examination of Reactance

This doctoral research investigates the impact of imperative call-to-action (CTA) messages in social media advertising and their potential to provoke psychological reactance. While imperative CTAs such as “Buy now!” or “Sign up today!” are traditionally designed to enhance advertising effectiveness, increasing ad saturation and user awareness may alter their persuasive impact. The study explores whether directive CTA language enhances engagement or, conversely, triggers resistance that undermines advertising performance. The research is built on two methodological pillars. First, a real-world Facebook A/B field experiment was conducted using a Hungarian webshop’s advertising account (N = 14,000 users). The manipulated variable was the presence versus absence of imperative CTA language. A LIWC-based linguistic analysis served as a manipulation check, confirming stronger directive elements in the experimental condition. Results from chi-square analysis and logistic regression indicated that ads containing imperative CTAs generated significantly lower click-through rates (0.5) compared to control ads (0.7), supporting the hypothesis that imperative CTAs may reduce user engagement. Second, a questionnaire-based study (N > 400) employed Hayes’ PROCESS Macro (Model 14) to test a moderated mediation framework. Findings revealed that imperative CTAs increase perceived threat to freedom, which in turn predicts psychological reactance. This indirect effect was moderated by anger, with stronger effects observed at lower levels of anger. Building on Psychological Reactance Theory, the study introduces the Inductive Reactance Model (IRM), drawing analogy from Maxwell’s concept of inductive resistance. The model conceptualizes strong imperative CTAs as high-voltage signals that may generate resistance rather than compliance. The findings contribute theoretically by bridging CTA research and reactance theory, and practically by suggesting that autonomy-supportive messaging may outperform directive commands in digital environments.

social media online advertisement psychological reactance user behaviour A/B split test

Language

hungarian

Details of publishing collection

Szalkai Zsuzsanna – Bíró-Szigeti Szilvia – Iványi Tamás – Kelemen-Erdős Anikó (eds.) (2025): Tudományágak kaleidoszkópja – a marketing, mint transzdiszciplináris terület. Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem, Gazdaság- és Társadalomtudományi Kar: Budapest. ISBN: 978-615-112-035-4 DOI:10.62561/EMOK-2025

Download in PDF format