Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 6, 2013).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Paul BollsIncludes bibliographical references.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2012."December 2012."The current research examined the use of aversive evoking content in advocacy viral videos and how the use of such content affected a person's intention to forward the message. In a 3 (Intensity) x 3 (Video) x 3 (Order) repeated measures design, participants watched nine viral video ads that varied in levels of aversive evoking content. The results of this research suggest that varying levels of aversive evoking content have significant effects on cognitive resources allocated to encoding, arousal, intention to forward, and persuasion. Implications for the construction of viral videos are discussed
