Perceptions of common ground can affect judgments of how effective communication is or will be. The current studies investigate whether members of different generations (i.e., Baby Boomers vs. Generation Z) might rate communication effectiveness higher when listening to members of their own generation produce ambiguous statements.

Perceptions of common ground can affect judgments of how effective communication is or will be. People rate ambiguous communication with friends or spouses as more likely to be successful than with strangers, even though actual understanding did not differ (Savitsky et al., 2012). This closeness-communication bias has been observed in communication in friends, minimal groups, and individuals who have only engaged in a brief text exchange (Van Der Wege et al., 2021). Prior research found no effects of group membership in different college communities on ratings of predicted and perceived conversation effectiveness. Intergenerational communication can be influenced by stereotypes about the age group and thus influence the predicted and perceived satisfaction of the conversation (Anderson et al., 2005). The current studies investigate whether members of different generations (i.e., baby boomers vs. generation Z) might rate communication effectiveness higher when listening to members of their own generation produce ambiguous statements.

Advertisements may elicit negative responses if they are surprising, especially if they are interruptive of a desired experience. In this experiment, individuals were asked to watch a series of short documentaries to assess their attitudes about advertisements and products. Individuals were either presented with a soundcheck video consisting of a few sound bites at the beginning of the experiment or presented with this and an additional preview of an advertisement that would appear sometime later in the experiment. We predicted that individuals who were shown the preview advertisement would be less surprised by the full‐length advertisement and have a more positive attitude about it and the product itself. The results of this experiment supported these predictions. The preview advertisement reduced surprise, and surprise negatively affected advertisement and product attitudes via interruption perception.

Advertisements may elicit negative responses if they are surprising. This is generally attributed to the idea that advertisements may be interruptive of a desired experience. In this experiment, individuals were asked to watch a series of short documentaries in order to assess their attitudes about particular advertisements and products. Individuals were either presented with a soundcheck video consisting of just sound bites at the beginning of the experiment or presented with this and an additional preview of the last four seconds of an advertisement sometime later in the experiment. We predicted that individuals who were shown the preview advertisement would be less surprised by the full-length advertisement and have a more positive attitude about the full-length advertisement and the product itself. The results of this experiment supported these predictions. The preview advertisement reduced surprise, and surprise negatively affected advertisement and product attitudes via interruption perception.

Advertisements may elicit negative responses if they are surprising. This is generally attributed to the fact that advertisements are usually not relevant with regard to what the individuals were originally expecting to perceive, that is to say advertisements can be said to be interruptive of the desired experience. In this experiment, individuals were asked to watch a video where either (i) a full-length advertisement played only after the expected content was finished (backend condition), (ii) a full-length advertisement played before the expected content began and after the expected content was finished (bothend condition), or (iii) a shortened preview of an advertisement played before the expected content began and a full-length advertisement played after the expected content was finished (preview condition). We predicted that individuals assigned to the preview condition would have a more positive attitude about a brand or product than individuals assigned to the backend or bothend conditions. We expect to yield results which support this prediction and supply evidence for earnestly considering the placement of advertisements on online platforms due to how consumer response is affected.