Development of a scale to measure skepticism of social advertising among adolescents

A significant amount of research has looked at the effectiveness of social marketing to teenagers, but teenagersʹ skeptical response to social advertising has not been considered. In this study, we review the relevant literature, develop a measure of social advertising skepticism with desirable psychometric properties, and show that social ad skepticism is distinct from the (commercial) ad skepticism that has been previously studied. We also develop a model of the antecedents and correlates of social advertising skepticism and test it using a sample of high-school students. Our results show that peer influence and reactance play a prominent role in an adolescentʹs skepticism of social and commercial ads. They also show that skeptical attitudes toward social ads are significantly correlated with reduced perceptions of the risks of some behaviors.