Operationalizing Involvement as Depth and Quality of Cognitive Response

This paper conceptualizes message response involvement as situational states characterized by the depth and quality of the cognitive responses evoked by the message. Data is presented to argue, however, that the inherent multidimensionality of such cognitive responses makes the operationalization of such a construct necessarily dependent on the nature of the theory and/or application in which such a construct is used. One theoretical framework is presented, and a potential method of researching such operationalizations is discussed.