COM223 What is Multisensory Priming?

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Recall recent experiences while shopping at a department store or supermarket. Give an example of priming for each of your five senses that was used in order to persuade you to purchase a product. Are you more likely to be persuaded when a particular sense is primed? Are you more likely to be persuaded when the persuasion attempt involves multiple senses being primed at the same time?

Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch

Please support your claims with examples from Chapter 7 of the text (attached)

Magee, R. (2014). Persuasion: A social science approach. [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

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7 Priming: Influencing Attitudes and Behaviors Blend images/Blend images Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to: • • • • • • Explain the phenomenon of priming. Distinguish between subliminal and supraliminal primes. Discuss how priming is used in marketing. Understand the three theories of nonconscious thinking. Discuss the effect of priming in relation to stereotypes. Apply priming to real-world contexts. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 143 8/26/14 4:08 PM Revisiting the Definition of Persuasion Section 7.1 Do you chew your food to the beat of the music you hear? Does fast-tempo music lead you to rush through your meal? In one study, over an 8-week period at a Dallas-area restaurant, the background music varied between either slow or fast music to see what effect it might have on diners (Milliman, 1986). The amount of money spent on food did not vary between the two conditions, about $55. However, when slow music played, patrons spent about 56 minutes dining in the restaurant, compared with only 45 minutes when fast music played. Further, as patrons spent more time in the restaurant when slow music played, purchases from the bar were significantly higher: $30 with slow music versus $22 with fast music. When slow music played, patrons drank an average of three drinks per person more. Apparently, the slow music helped to create a more relaxing atmosphere that encouraged patrons to linger, and as patrons felt more relaxed, they tended to order more beverages from the bar. Factors in your environment can do more than just affect your mood, however. Some cues can actually influence what you think about or what you do. Priming is a phenomenon in which a person is exposed to an external stimulus, either consciously or not, and this exposure subsequently influences how the person responds to altogether different stimuli or behaves in a different context. The initial prime could be a word, an image, or a smell that makes the idea more accessible. The prime will only have an effect, though, to the extent that it is related to other concepts; that is, raising the accessibility of one idea will also increase the accessibility of other ideas that are in that same network of associations. This is referred to as spreading activation. In Chapter 5, on the theory of planned behavior, we saw how people could be persuaded through rational, effortful deliberative thinking. In Chapter 6, on dual-process models, we saw that people could be persuaded either by effortful thinking, or low-effort thinking, or a combination of the two. In this chapter, we will see how people can be influenced through nonconscious thinking processes, merely by making a concept or idea more accessible to the mind. We can be affected by a seemingly endless number of factors—from a restaurant menu’s weight, the tempo of music playing in the background, the type of lighting in a room, the comfort of the chair we sit in. Those in the business of persuasion have begun to harness these factors to influence people in many areas, such as sales, health, and politics. In this chapter, we will explore the empirical research into the many ways we can be influenced without even being aware of it. 7.1 Revisiting the Definition of Persuasion If you recall the definition of persuasion in Chapter 1, action without thought cannot be considered persuasion because the target’s free will is not involved. For an action to be an attempt at persuasion, the target’s free will must be involved. Free will must involve reflective awareness so that the target can make a conscious self-aware decision on how to respond to the persuasion attempt. Priming does not force, or compel, a target to respond, so the person’s free will is not violated, but neither is the target’s free will involved in the attempt. So, strictly speaking, attempts, such as priming, to influence people outside the use of their free mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 144 8/26/14 4:08 PM Subliminal and Supraliminal Primes Section 7.2 will cannot be considered to be persuasion. Many different kinds of cues in the environment can lead people to change their behavior, but often people are unaware of them. In fact, when people become aware of the cue, any influence over their action is eliminated. For example, you saw in Chapter 1 that the weather, being either sunny or cloudy, had an influence on individuals’ satisfaction with life. However, when people were made aware that the weather can influence attitudes, the weather no longer influenced their responses. So, because a target usually is not consciously aware of the attempt to influence, the attempt cannot be labeled persuasion. Further, although some automatic phenomena involve a target’s attitudes, other attempts influence behavior without touching on a target’s attitudes. Priming is a form of social influence, but it is not the same as persuasion. If you refer to Figure 1.1 in Chapter 1, you will see that automatic behavior (and compliance gaining, discussed in more detail in Chapter 12) are related to, but distinct from, persuasion. In essence, priming increases the accessibility of information from memory, and this information has an impact on a person’s behavior in a way that the person is unaware of. Influence via priming is not, strictly speaking, a form of persuasion because it does not meet the criteria for our definition of persuasion. Because it happens at a nonconscious level, this kind of influence does not involve the target’s free will, and, many times, it does not involve a conscious change in attitudes. However, you should know how cues in a given context, such as smells or colors, can influence attitudes and behavior. What’s more, this vein of research likely will lead to important changes to our understanding of persuasion in the future. In fact, in many ways, it already has. 7.2 Subliminal and Supraliminal Primes In the 1950s, James Vicary sparked widespread fear in the United States. He said that he had conducted experiments at a movie theater in New Jersey that increased the sales of popcorn and Coca-Cola®. He said he placed a single slide or a movie frame of the phrase Eat popcorn or Drink Coca-Cola in an advertising film roll, and claimed that these subliminal messages made people purchase popcorn and Coca-Cola. When the news came out, people around the country went crazy. This was around the time of the red scare, when many Americans were afraid of the threat of communist infiltration posed by the Soviet Union. Lawmakers started decrying the dangers posed by subliminal images. Preachers ranted against the threats to society. The whole country was in an uproar. Researchers were fascinated by the possibility, but they were unable to replicate the supposed results. Decades later, Vicary admitted that he had made the whole thing up (Weir, 1984) in an attempt to drum up business for his fledgling marketing firm. Nevertheless, for decades, and even to this day, many people think that we can be persuaded by subliminal images or messages. Some countries even have bans on the use of subliminal content in commercial messages. And as it turns out, more sophisticated tests are beginning to reveal that subtle cues can, in certain instances, influence a person’s attitudes and even a person’s behavior. And, yes, some of these cues fall into the realm of the subliminal—and also the supraliminal. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 145 9/5/14 10:10 AM Subliminal and Supraliminal Primes Section 7.2 A subliminal prime occurs below conscious awareness, much like the original subliminal message controversy claimed. A supraliminal prime, on the other hand, is one that a person is aware of. On a technical note, whether a prime is subliminal or supraliminal is not a property of the prime itself; it is a property of whether the person is aware of it. For example, when wine shoppers heard classical music in the background, compared with pop music, they tended to choose more expensive wines and spend more money overall, LOOK-foto/LOOK-foto even though they did not purchase a Music is a prime that can influence how much diners greater number of bottles (Areni & Kim, 1993). In another field experiment over purchase. a 2-week period, supermarket sales of French wine were higher on the days that shoppers heard stereotypically French music, compared with German music (North, Hargreaves, & McKendrick, 1999). (See Table 7.1.) Further, the vast majority of shoppers who responded to a questionnaire seemed to be unaware of the influence of music on their wine choice. The shoppers obviously sensed the music, but its influence occurred below the level of consciousness. Table 7.1: Bottles sold within each music condition Bottles sold French music German music French wine 40 12 German wine 8 Source: Adapted from North, Hargreaves, & McKendrick, 1999, p. 274. 22 Let’s consider an illustration of a supraliminal versus subliminal prime. If you walk through a shopping mall and smell the aroma of chocolate chip cookies, that aroma could prime a memory of your grandmother, if that aroma is already associated with your grandmother. If you are consciously aware of the aroma (e.g., “Oh, I love the smell of those cookies baking!”) and also then remark to yourself that the smell reminds you of your grandmother, then the aroma primed you supraliminally. If you did not notice the aroma, however, and “out of nowhere” you think of your grandmother, then the aroma primed you subliminally. You very likely won’t be aware of this priming, of course, because if you didn’t consciously note the aroma of the cookies, then the thought of your grandmother will seem to you completely random. Likewise, the smell will remind you of your grandmother only if you already have an association between that smell and your grandmother in your memory. Your friend could walk by the same cookie store and not be reminded of her grandmother if there is no association in her memory between the aroma of baking cookies and her grandmother. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 146 8/26/14 4:08 PM Priming and Marketing Section 7.3 You saw in Chapter 2 that people can form an impression of a person’s interpersonal warmth from viewing a face for as little of one-tenth of a second (Willis & Todorov, 2006). People also form impressions of a website in a split second. This length of time is hardly long enough for a person to engage in effortful deliberation; people have developed the ability to make an evaluation nearly automatically. And people are constantly engaging in automatic thought. Because of the spreading activation of ideas in a network, priming one concept can increase the accessibility of related ideas automatically. So, any idea that has been primed has the potential to influence someone’s impression of a target, whether that target is a menu, cookies, or a bottle of wine. 7.3 Priming and Marketing There is ample empirical evidence mounting that subliminal primes have more influence than once believed. And this research is already having a profound impact on marketing strategies. Priming and Goals Priming may have significant impact in the context of marketing, especially to an audience that already is goal directed. For example, priming someone with thirst-related words can lead a person to drink more, but only if that person is already thirsty. If that person is not thirsty, then a subliminal prime will have no effect. Let’s see how this was tested in a 2 × 2 factorial experiment that manipulated thirst (thirsty versus not thirsty) and a subliminal prime (thirst prime versus neutral prime) (Strahan, Spencer, & Zanna, 2002). People were asked not to eat or drink anything 3 hours before the study, which supposedly was a marketing study in which they would sample and evaluate a variety of products. At the beginning of the study, they sampled a couple of cookies and evaluated them. After this taste test, half of the participants were offered water “to cleanse the palate” and were told they could drink as much water as they wanted. The other half did not receive any water. So, half of the participants remained thirsty and the other half quenched their thirst. All of the study participants then were seated at a computer and instructed to tell whether a set of letters flashed on the screen was a word or not. Unknown to them, though, they were also presented subliminal primes for a split second. Half of the participants were exposed to thirst-related words such as “thirst” and “dry,” while the others were exposed to neutral words, such as “pirate,” and “won.” After this, everyone participated in another taste test, this time of two sweetened beverages, and they were told they could drink as much as they wanted. After the participants left, the experimenter measured how much beverage they had consumed. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 147 8/26/14 4:08 PM Priming and Marketing Figure 7.1: Priming and thirst For participants who were already thirsty, exposure to words like “thirst” and “dry” had a significant effect on the amount of water they later consumed. 210 200 Thirst-Related Primes Neutral Primes 190 mL Consumed It turned out that when people were not thirsty, the thirst-related primes had no effect on how they drank. However, people who were thirsty and had been primed with thirst-related words drank significantly more than thirsty people who had been exposed to neutral words (see Figure 7.1). Thirsty people who had been primed with neutral words did not drink any more than the not-thirsty people. That means that when a goal is already present, a prime can influence someone’s behavior toward that goal. Section 7.3 180 170 160 150 So, a subliminal prime can influence how much someone drinks, but can a sublimi140 nal prime influence an ad’s persuasive130 ness? The researchers conducted a similar 120 experiment that only involved thirsty 110 people. That is, no one drank water at the Thirsty Not Thirsty beginning of the experiment. As before, Subliminal Priming Condition half of the participants were exposed subliminally to thirst-related words and half Source: Strahan, E. J., Spencer, S. J., & Zanna, M. P. (2002). Subliminal were exposed to neutral words. Then, priming and persuasion: Striking while the iron is hot. Journal of they examined two ads for sports bever- Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 556–568, fig.1. Published by Elsevier. Reprinted with permission. ages at the same time. One ad was for the “Super-Quencher” and touted the beverage’s effectiveness in quenching thirst. The other ad was for the “PowerPro” and highlighted the beverage’s ability to restore electrolytes. After this, they reported their attitude toward the ads. They also were offered a total of nine coupons for the beverages and could choose how many they wanted of each type of beverage. People who had been exposed to the subliminal thirst primes rated the Super-Quencher more favorably than the PowerPro, but people who had been exposed to the neutral primes rated each beverage about the same (see Figure 7.2). Also, people who were exposed to the thirst primes chose a greater number of coupons for Super-Quencher than for PowerPro, compared with those who were exposed to the neutral primes. So, we see that a prime can influence a person’s choice when that goal is already relevant. Thirsty people were more likely to favor a thirst-quenching beverage over a nonquenching beverage when they had been primed subliminally. But, what about choosing one brand of a thirst-quenching beverage over another? Can consumers be primed with a brand name? As you know, consumers can be very loyal to particular brands, so much so that the brand becomes part of their identity. Some people identify themselves as a “Pepsi person” or a “Mac person.” Among people who have strong brand loyalty, priming a particular brand is unlikely to influence their behavior. However, when people face choices that do not involve their preferred brand, a subliminal prime might be effective. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 148 8/26/14 4:08 PM Priming and Marketing Section 7.3 Figure 7.2: Priming and beverage choice People seemed to prefer a “thirst-quenching” beverage after they have been exposed to words associated with thirst. Rating of Sports Drinks 5 Thirst-Related Primes Neutral Primes 4.5 4 3.5 Super-Quencher PowerPro Subliminal Priming Condition Source: Strahan, E. J., Spencer, S. J., & Zanna, M. P. (2002). Subliminal priming and persuasion: Striking while the iron is hot. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 556–568. Fig. 2. Published by Elsevier. Reprinted with permission. So, you can see that subliminal primes can influence a person’s choice of a brand, but only when a goal is already relevant. Also, the primes likely would be most effective in situations in which a consumer does not already have a strong preference for a particular brand. The studies we’ve just discussed used words (lexical primes) mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 149 Figure 7.3: Intention to drink Lipton Ice based on primes According to this study, choice of brand can be influenced by related primes when brand loyalty is not a factor. 6 Intention to Drink Lipton Ice In a follow-up study, the scientists manipulated participants’ thirst by giving half of them a salty candy to taste, yielding a 2 × 2 factorial design involving thirst (thirsty versus not thirsty) and subliminal prime (Lipton Ice versus control). Then, all the participants were exposed to one of the subliminal primes, after which they were asked to choose between Lipton Ice and the branded mineral water. As in the previous experiment, participants who were thirsty and who had been exposed to the Lipton Ice brand were more likely to choose Lipton Ice. In other words, if you are thirsty and can choose between a brand of iced tea and a brand of mineral water, would priming the tea brand lead you to choose the tea over the water? To test this possibility, scientists subliminally primed participants with either the Lipton Ice® brand or nonsense words (e.g., Npeic Tol) that were made from the same letters and were similar in length, which served as the experiment’s control condition (Karremans, Stroebe, & Claus, 2006). After this, the participants were asked how likely they were to choose Lipton Ice and a brand of mineral water and indicate how thirsty they felt. Participants who had been exposed to the Lipton Ice prime were more likely to choose the tea, if they were thirsty. That is, the thirstier they felt, the more likely they were to choose Lipton Ice. This was not the case for those who were exposed to the neutral prime (see Figure 7.3). Also, the Lipton Ice prime had no effect on people’s intention to drink the branded water, regardless of their thirstiness. Lipton Ice Prime 5 4 Control Prime 3 2 1 Low High Amount of Thirst Source: Karremans, J. C., Stroebe, W., & Claus, J. (2006). Beyond Vicary’s fantasies: The impact of subliminal priming and brand choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 792–798, fig. 1. Published by Elsevier. Reprinted with permission.06). 8/26/14 4:08 PM Priming and Marketing Section 7.3 to test the possibility that subliminal priming could influence consumer behavior. However, primes do not need to be words. Images, shapes, sounds, and smells might work just as well. Further, the primes do not need to be subliminal, and neither do they need to be isolated from other forms of persuasion and social influence. Multisensory Primes In 2012, Dunkin’ Donuts® added a coffee smell to its ad campaign in Seoul, South Korea. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbU1jwLgaLQ. Scent dispensers installed on passenger buses sprayed a coffee fragrance every time a radio ad for Dunkin’ Donuts coffee aired. The ad highlighted the fact that coffee was available at Dunkin’ Donuts shops near bus stops, creating a sense of immediacy. During the campaign, developed by ad agency Cheil Worldwide, sales increased 29% at the Dunkin’ Donuts outlets located near bus stops, and customer traffic increased 16%. The ad engaged two senses of the audience. Passengers heard the ad’s content while they simultaneously smelled the coffee. These two senses are processed in different parts of the brain. The auditory element is processed by the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for higher-order thinking, whereas the scent of the coffee is processed by the limbic system, which processes our more basic, reflexive processes to stimuli. This second aspect, engaging the more base, reflexive area of the brain, meant that passengers processed the smell automatically, without thinking, and therefore it was this sensation that rendered the ad more effective than a conventional radio ad alone. Pair this with the fact that Koreans are avid coffee consumers, and so a coffee-drinking goal was already salient for many of the passengers, thus making this one very powerful ad. The campaign’s short-term goal was obviously to prompt passengers to purchase Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, thus increasing revenue. But there is a longer-term goal as well. The long-term goal was to make Dunkin’ Donuts part of the consumer’s consideration set, which is a memory-based outcome. One outcome of a persuasion attempt can be to increase memory for a brand. Regardless of whether the ad incited passengers to immediately buy Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, it was, through addition of a scent prime, trying to make Dunkin’ Donuts coffee more memorable to the Pietro scozzari/age fotostock passengers. The limbic system is also Multisensory primes with an ad boosted coffee sales an integral part of memory creation at Dunkin’ Donuts in South Korea. and storage, so by activating that part of the brain with the scent of coffee, it also is likely to register a more lasting memory with the person who experienced that smell. That is, the scent functioned as a prime that was associated with the brand and the product in the consumers’ memory. Through spreading activation, the scent would bring up these associated mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 150 8/26/14 4:08 PM Priming and Marketing Section 7.3 ideas. Perhaps, then, in the future, Dunkin’ Donuts will be one of the brands recalled—that is, one of the brands in a consideration set—for a would-be coffee drinker. And the real kicker? It will be considered without any effortful thought. Have you ever wondered whether the weight of a person’s business card or a resume influenced your perception of that person? Do you think that holding heavy paper would lead someone to think that the person had superior credentials? When we think about this rationally, it would be silly to suppose that we could be influenced by something as irrelevant as a menu’s weight. However, people are seldom entirely rational. A prime can take many forms, any of which can prime a concept. And any concept that is primed can have an influence on a person’s attitudes or behavior. Metaphorically speaking, we tend to think that something “weighty” is more important and valuable, and priming the concept of weight can affect someone’s attitudes toward a product. For example, researchers asked people to sample yogurt in three bowls that were identical in every way, except their weight (Piqueras-Fiszman, Harrar, Alcaide, & Spence, 2011). They put the same yogurt in each bowl, but the bowls’ weight influenced people’s impressions of the yogurt in them. The bowls’ weight did not affect their perceptions of the flavor intensity or their liking, but the weight of the bowl led people to think that the yogurt in it was thicker and that it cost more. This phenomenon seems to apply to a variety of products. For example, people tend to guess that a heavier bottle of wine is more expensive and of higher quality, than a lighter bottle (Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence, 2012). So, persuaders could influence consumers’ perceptions of their product just by making the packaging heavier or lighter. People can also be primed by the sense of touch. Sitting in a soft chair can make someone psychologically “softer,” while sitting in a hard chair can make someone “tougher.” For example, people sitting in a hard chair, instead of a soft chair, recommended harsher criminal sentences after reading a variety of scenarios (Cherkasskiy, Song, Malahy, & Bargh, 2012). In another study, some people were sitting in a soft cushioned chair, while people in another experimental condition were sitting in a hard wooden chair. They imagined shopping for new car and making an offer to the dealer that was rejected. Then, the participants had to make a second offer. People who sat in a hard chair took a harder negotiation stance and did not change their initial offer as much as the people who were sitting in a soft chair (Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010). So, the next time you are in a negotiation or sales situation, make sure the other party is sitting in a soft and comfortable chair, and make sure the people on your side are sitting in hard chairs. Of course, if you know that you’re sitting in a hard chair, then it likely will not have an effect on your negotiation style. Just as we can be influenced automatically by a number of factors, such as weight, smell, and touch, we also have a natural tendency to establish a sense of rapport with someone. This is because establishing a sense of similarity enables smoother social interactions. So, priming a sense of personal connection can affect how one person feels about another. For better or worse, we tend to identify with people who share some similar characteristic, and this can influence our behavior. For example, high school students tend to do better on a math test if they have read about another high-achieving math student at another school who has the same birthday as they do. Just this small bit of similarity is enough to prime an achievement goal, which helps the students perform better on the exam (Walton, Cohen, Cwir, & Spencer, 2012). mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 151 8/26/14 4:08 PM Theories of Nonconscious Thinking Section 7.4 Likewise, people are more likely to complete a survey when the name of the person sending the survey shares the same initial as the respondent (Garner, 2005). That is, if Richard Smith receives a survey invitation from someone named Roger Hedrick, Richard is more likely to complete that survey than if the survey had been sent to him by someone named Stanley Hedrick. Just sharing the first initial of the first name is enough to establish a sense of similarity, and the respondent is more likely to comply with the request. People have a natural tendency to imitate each other’s behavior, which helps establish rapport between people. However, this can also be used to influence somebody’s attitude about you. In one study (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999), a person was invited to work on a photographevaluation task. A study confederate was seated next to the person at a right angle and presumably worked on the same task. However, the confederate imitated the participant’s behavior. When the person leaned in, the confederate leaned in. When the participant folded her arms, the confederate folded her arms. If the participant scratched her head, the confederate scratched her head, too. The goal was to mirror the participant’s behavior without drawing attention to it. So, the mimicking behavior occurred one or two seconds after the participant engaged in a particular movement. After the task, participants were asked how much they liked the confederate and so on. In the conditions when the confederate mimicked the behavior, participants had a more favorable impression of the confederate, compared with the condition in which the behavior was not mimicked. Cordelia Molloy/Photo Researchers, Inc. By subconsciously mimicking each other, people can reinforce social ties, which can increase social influence. So, the next time you meet someone, or you have a sales pitch, try mimicking that person subtly, if you dare. When that person unfolds his arms, wait a couple of seconds and then unfold your arms. If he shifts to one side, wait a couple of seconds and shift as well. At a nonconscious level, that person is more likely to feel a sense of rapport with you. Some good sales people do this instinctively, trying to match a customer’s tone of voice, rate of speaking, mannerisms, and so on, as they try to “connect” with the customer. However, if the person feels that you are just mimicking, or being manipulative, then you will have ruined what could have been a good relationship. 7.4 Theories of Nonconscious Thinking Although these priming phenomena are fascinating, general theories that might explain these phenomena are still being worked out. You would be right to suspect that these relationships are complex. People are remarkably complex, and it is only natural that the phenomena would be complex, too. In fact, the field is experiencing considerable debate. Subtle changes in contexts, the experimental materials, a person’s goals, and so on, can influence mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 152 8/26/14 4:08 PM Theories of Nonconscious Thinking Section 7.4 these relationships. Sometimes, replications of a study have failed, which leads scholars to doubt the veracity of the original findings (see Bartlett, 2013). Further, when a study reports that there was no relationship, that study is much less likely to be published. After all, who wants to read that “nothing happened,” unless you were really expecting something to happen? This is sometimes known as the “file-drawer problem.” To make matters worse, a couple of researchers have had to retract their published studies after they were found to have made up study results (Bartlett, 2013). However, as you have seen thus far, the volume and breadth of automatic phenomena studied by a number of independent scholars indicate priming and automatic thought are real phenomena and not laboratory artifacts. The debate is healthy and likely will lead to refinements in theories as scientists develop a better understanding of how these nuanced phenomena function. Scientists draw a useful distinction between mental content, namely what a person thinks, and mental processes, namely how a person thinks. Many times a cue in the environment can serve to prime mental content, but a cue can also exert an influence by affecting how a person thinks. Environmental cues, such as the temperature a person feels, can function as cognitive content, while other cues, such as colors, can influence cognitive processes. A person who is engaged in low-effort automatic thinking is more likely to use environmental cues as cognitive content. A person who is not engaged in this type of thinking is more likely to ignore these cues (Magee, 2012). In general, though, researchers have agreed that priming one concept has an influence on a person’s attitudes and behavior in another area. We won’t dwell much on the theories because the field is still in a state of flux, but you should be familiar with the thinking behind these phenomena. Let’s look at some of these theories. Embodied Cognition Some scholars maintain that these phenomena are a form of what is called embodied cognition. Embodied cognition maintains that something you feel in your body can influence what you think. That is, a primed physical sensation can affect thoughts and behaviors that are related to that sensation. For example, let’s say you feel excited when you ride a roller coaster and enjoy other rides at a theme park. Those positive feelings can influence your attitude toward the person you are with as those feelings transfer to the other person. This phenomenon is called excitation transfer (Zillmann, 2003) or misattribution (Schwarz, 2011), in which you mistakenly attribute what you feel to some nearby target. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 153 Jupiterimages/Exactostock What you feel in your body can influence how you feel about people near you. 8/26/14 4:08 PM Theories of Nonconscious Thinking Section 7.4 Embodied cognition may also function as a metaphor (Lee & Schwarz, 2012). For example, when something weighs a lot, we tend to think it is more important, or of more value, such as the yogurt and wine examples mentioned earlier. Or, we associate a person’s interpersonal warmth with the physical sensation of being warm, or something placed higher in a list as more important than something similar that appears relatively lower. However, these effects are not uniform. Recall that a subliminal prime can influence someone when a goal is already relevant. In a similar way, priming a concept such as weight can influence a person’s thoughts, but only if they are able to relate it to preexisting information in memory. For example, participants were presented a questionnaire on a heavy clipboard or a light clipboard (Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010). The questionnaire asked how much government funding should be increased or decreased for a variety of social issues. When people were familiar with the issue, they were willing to increase funding when the questionnaire was presented on a heavy clipboard, compared with the light clipboard. When people were less familiar with the issue, the weight of the clipboard did not exert an influence. In another study (Chandler, Reinhard, & Schwarz, 2012), researchers hid a weight inside a book and asked people to give their opinion of the book. When people knew something about the book, either because they had read the book or because they had the opportunity to read a short overview, they judged the book as being more important and influential when it weighed more. Feelings-as-Information Theory Another perspective is the feelings-as-information theory (Schwarz, 2011), in which affective states are used as an input into what you think. In other words, how you feel becomes a piece of information that your mind uses to evaluate something. Recall, for example, that noticing if the weather is sunny or cloudy can influence how satisfied a person is with his or her life (Schwarz & Clore, 1983). The color of a retail environment can influence shoppers’ attitudes and behavior. A blue environment can lead to pleasant feelings and a more satisfying shopping experience. Red, in contrast, tends to lead to less pleasant feelings while shopping (Bellizi & Hite, 1992). These feelings can then influence how a consumer perceives different products, as the feelings “rub off” on a consumer’s impressions of a product. Fancy Collection/Fancy Collection The weather can influence how you feel about your life. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 154 The color of ambient lighting also can influence our perceptions of taste and value, but it can do so without noticeably affecting a person’s feelings. Wine consumers said that Riesling, a white wine, tasted better in a room with blue or red lighting than it did in a green or white environment (Oberfeld, Hecht, Allendorf, & Wickelmaier, 2009). People who tasted the wine in the green room also thought the wine was less valuable. However, the colors did not influence how people perceived specific characteristics of the wine, such as its fruitiness or intensity. A follow-up study found a very small influence on 8/26/14 4:08 PM Theories of Nonconscious Thinking Section 7.4 perceptions of taste, but not odor, which is also an important factor in determining how much we like beverages and food. More importantly, though, the influence of color on attitudes toward the wine was unrelated to mood. That is, a particular color, such as blue, did not influence how a person felt, which then could have influenced how that person evaluated the wine. This is in contrast to the Bellizi and Hite (1992) finding that ambient color influenced how shoppers felt. So, in the wine-tasting study, it appears that the ambient color had an influence on consumers’ attitudes toward the wine and its perceived value, but this effect did not occur as a form of mental content. That is, in contrast to the feelings-as-information theory, the tasters’ feelings were not information that formed part of their evaluations of the wine. Persuasion in Focus: Whole Foods and Priming Martin Lindstrom, author of the book Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy (2011), maintained that many companies attempt to “prime” us to think and feel in certain ways about their space and merchandise. For example, Whole Foods Market is one of the world’s largest organic retailers, boasting hundreds of stores in North America and the United Kingdom. The store is premised on being ecologically and environmentally conscious, while providing healthy, natural products that are often locally grown and distributed. In his analysis of a Whole Foods Market grocery store, Lindstrom argued that every detail of that customer experience is well thought out, that customers are primed every step of the way to buy into the branding image of Whole Foods. For instance, fresh cut flowers greet the customer at the door. These flowers send olfactory, visual, and associative messages of sweetness (suggesting calmness and friendliness), bright colors (associated with life and energy), and freshness (insinuating newness or vibrancy). Below the flowers, prices are displayed on a chalkboard, a practice associated with traditional outdoor marketplaces. This display should create feelings of shopping in a small town or being transported to another place. The chalk is meant to Damian Dovarganes/ASSOCIATED PRESS suggest the prices can change at any time. As you How many “primes” can you idenmake your way through the store, ice is strategically tify in this photo? and visibly placed to chill products like yogurt dip or hummus. He said this ice is designed to convey freshness and purity, as well. Finally, he said the store displays their food in boxes, once again reinforcing the idea of old-time simplicity. This gives the impression that the boxes were loaded directly from the farm, onto a truck, and then brought to the store. However, on close inspection he said you’ll see it is all one box, carefully designed to make it appear as if each food item was packed in a different box. Overall, the idea is to suggest farm freshness. The next time you enter a grocery store, look more carefully at the layout, color scheme, and product displays. Think about the messages that underlie these subtle packaging and display techniques, and what types of thoughts and feelings they are meant to discreetly “prime.” —Cheri Ketchum, Ph.D. (continued) mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 155 8/26/14 4:08 PM Theories of Nonconscious Thinking Section 7.4 Persuasion in Focus: Whole Foods and Priming (continued) Critical Thinking Questions 1. 2. Have you seen other ways supermarkets use displays to evoke the ideas of small farms and freshness? Does the grocery store you shop at ever have photographs of the farmer, or a description of where the produce items came from? Reference Lindstrom, M. (2011). Brandwashed: Tricks companies use to manipulate our minds and persuade us to buy. New York: Crown Business. Unconscious Thought Theory Unconscious thought theory holds that our minds are constantly evaluating information in the “background,” leading to “intuitive” judgments that can be as accurate and well reasoned as judgments arrived at via effortful reasoning (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006). For example, let’s say you are considering renting an apartment and you have several alternatives. If you are considering four apartments on four different characteristics, conscious thought is quite able to make a good choice. However, if you are considering those apartments on 12 different characteristics, conscious thought is almost helpless in enabling you to make a good choice (Dijksterhuis, 2004). Unconscious thought, on the other hand, can handle the complexity quite well. After a period of distraction, you would be able to make a good choice. Your unconscious, or better nonconscious, thought processes keep working in the background and are able to organize complex amounts of information. This is why solutions to problems sometimes come to you after you take a break and think about something else. This background, effortless thinking occurs constantly and can be more efficient in handling several pieces of relatively simple information at the same time. If so, then this type of automatic thinking is always ready to influence our conscious thoughts, as long as someone is motivated to reach an accurate conclusion. In fact, nonconscious thought processes seem to work best after a period of conscious deliberation, which means that both processes probably work best in partnership with each other (Bargh, Schwader, Hailey, et al., 2012). So, if a target has been presented a number of reasons for preferring one alternative over others, the target will continue to process the information while she is distracted by something else. When facing a choice, some people say they need to “sleep on it,” or go running, or something similar before they make their decision. Albert Einstein said he often played his violin when he reached a difficult point in analyzing a problem in physics or developing theory. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 156 8/26/14 4:08 PM Priming and Stereotypes Section 7.5 7.5 Priming and Stereotypes Priming phenomena have implications in the world of marketing and advertising, but this world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Methods and messages in marketing campaigns influence, and are influenced by, the socio-cultural context in which they’re created, and any cue could prime the application of a stereotype. Primes can also be grouped under the label of automaticity (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999) because of their automatic nature. Automatic thought is neither good nor bad in itself. In fact, we could not function well if we had to think carefully and deliberately over every single thing. Think back to when you learned to drive a car. At first, everything was very complicated, and you had to think about your foot on the accelerator versus the brake, or when to use the signals and the mirrors, and everything else. However, as you gained practice, these behaviors became automatic, and you found that you were able to talk and drive at the same time, as well as change the radio station. Much of our automatic thought involves the application of stereotypes, which are a type of heuristic. As you recall from Chapter 6, a heuristic is a snap judgment that people use as a mental shortcut. A stereotype is a category that we apply quickly and effortlessly to something that we encounter. You can walk into a furniture store, for example, and see a variety of tables and quickly categorize each one as a table and not as a shelf or a bookcase. Sometimes, we can have difficulty classifying something as being a chair or a table because it does not readily fit a known stereotype. We can walk through a museum of modern art, or avant-garde design, and encounter things that do not fit the regular stereotype of a table, or a coat rack, or a lamp. In these cases, we have to stop and think about the object before we can recognize what it is. We use stereotyping to our advantage. Because it helps us make sense of a new situation or object very quickly, it can help us survive. You might, for example, categorize a stray dog on the street as a potential threat and so avert its path. Not all stray dogs are violent, of course, but your stereotyping of them in this way could prevent you from unnecessary risk; marking wild animals as threats in this way is an adaptive means of survival. Should the animal be sick or hungry or scared, it might bite you even if unprovoked, which could lead to serious injuries or life-threatening disease if left untreated. In this way, stereotypes can help us navigate our world more quickly, easily, and at times more safely. However, stereotypes can also be extremely damaging when we apply them to people. That is because we rapidly categorize someone as belonging to a category rather than getting to know the person as an individual. It’s one thing to wrongly stereotype a stray dog; it’s another to wrongly stereotype a person. Nevertheless, to sell products, advertisers take advantage of our tendency to stereotype. One analysis of more than 1,000 magazine ads found that Asian American models tended to appear in ads for electronics and financial services, but not for other types of products or services (Taylor, Landreth, & Bang, 2005). Asian Americans also tended to appear in business settings, but not in social or family settings. By using existing stereotypes, advertisers hope that the rapid associations that consumers have with certain ethnic groups will carry over onto evaluations of their product or service. Consistent with the feelings-as-information theory, cues in the environment can work because they prime an existing stereotype. Recall that wine shoppers who listened to classical music bought more expensive wine than when they listened to pop music. This is because the music was associated in their minds with more refined and expensive products. In a study conducted mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 157 8/26/14 4:08 PM Priming and Stereotypes Section 7.5 at a popular restaurant, however, fewer diners consumed at least three alcoholic beverages when classical music was played, compared with pop, jazz, and easy listening music (Wilson, 2003). Thus, classical music primed a stereotype that did not match the restaurant and the type of beverages served, resulting in lower sales. Likewise, playing romantic songs in a flower shop was associated with higher sales, compared with pop music and a control condition in which no music was played (Jacob, Guéguen, Boulbry, & Sami, 2009). Shoppers also spent more time in the shop when romantic music was playing. This likely was due to the match between romantic music and the flowers-romance heuristic. In fact, when pop music was playing shoppers spent roughly as much as when no music was playing. What is more, when pop music played, shoppers spent less time in the store than when there was no music at all. Think back for a moment to the example we reviewed at the beginning of the chapter, in which the tempo of music led restaurant patrons to slow down and order beverages from the bar (Milliman, 1986). In this case, music did not serve to prime a heuristic, a type of mental content. Instead, the music influenced diners’ mood, and presumably, their type of mental processing, which then influenced their behavior. So, as you can see, priming effects can be quite complex. Persuasion in the Real World: Smells Sell Marketers know the power of subtle associations in a retail environment, whether it involves architecture, lighting, music, textures, or scent. Many smells are effective because they have been associated in our memory with certain experiences. For example, you are likely familiar with real estate agents’ recommendation that a home seller bake an apple pie or cookies before an open house. However, marketers have begun to incorporate sensory experiences in an effort to boost sales or enhance brand associations. If exposure to a particular scent occurs in connection with exposure to a brand or product, then over time the pleasant sensation can become linked with the brand in the consumer’s memory. This is different from the marketing of scents, such as perfumes and candles, in which the fragrance is the focal object. Sensory marketing involves the use of fragrances and other ambient factors to enhance a consumer’s interaction with another product. That is, through spreading activation, the scent prime leads the brand and brand associations to be more accessible. Some brands are creating unique scents that are associated with the brand—say, a relaxing cozy smell in a hotel lobby to welcome guests. Westin, for example, has introduced a proprietary White Tea fragrance in its lobbies. Westin wants the relaxing floral scent to become linked with the hotel brand in travelers’ minds. When travelers arrive to check in at the hotel, they are greeted by the unique refreshing scent. The scent, developed by ScentAir, has become so popular that it now sells the fragrance via candles, oils, and the like. See http://www.scentair.com/why-scentair-scent-studies/westin-hotels-resorts/. The parent company, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, has since developed signature scents, coupled with sound and light, to create a unique arrival experience for each of its upscale hotel brands. Incorporating ambient factors such as aromas or lighting is a long way from a traditional focus on message arguments as the primary means of persuasion. But as researchers and marketers discover how the mind functions, we can expect many more multisensory efforts at persuasion and influence. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 158 8/26/14 4:08 PM Practical Application: False Information Section 7.6 7.6 Practical Application: False Information Frequent exposure to information increases perceptions of the information’s familiarity. And, because of the availability heuristic, when something is familiar or easily recalled, we are more likely to accept it as being true (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). A classic study on wartime rumors during World War II (Allport & Lepkin, 1945) found that merely repeating a rumor made it more believable. That is, the more a rumor was repeated, the more likely a person was to believe it. However, false information is best left alone. By repeating the false information, even to discredit it, you run the risk of increasing the information’s acceptance (Schwarz, Sanna, Skurnik, & Yoon, 2007). This phenomenon is known as the “illusion of truth” effect. This occurs because the credible source of the information becomes associated with the misinformation itself. When a persuader describes false information to counter-argue it, the audience tends to forget some of the details, and over time is more likely to believe the false information. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a flyer to encourage people to receive a flu vaccination. This flyer featured a common myths-versus-facts format, in which a popular myth was presented followed by the relevant facts that showed the myth to be untrue. However, a study revealed that by repeating the myth, the CDC flyer actually increased the myth’s acceptance (Schwarz et al., 2007). In the study, participants read a facts-versus-myths flyer or a facts-only flyer. After they read the flyer, some participants immediately evaluated a list of statements that had been featured in the flyer and then indicated whether that statement was true or false. Another group evaluated the list of statements after a 30-minute delay. So, this was a classic 2 (facts versus facts and myths) × 2 (delay versus no delay) factorial experiment, with a control group in which participants did not read a flyer before evaluating the statements. Participants who evaluated the statements immediately after reading the flyer were able to judge the information accurately. They only labeled 4% of the myths as true and only 3% of the facts as false, a rate that can be attributed to random errors. People who were asked to review the statements after a 30-minute delay, however, judged 15% of the myths as true. Their misjudgment of true facts as being false remained unchanged, remaining about 2%. In other words, after their memory of the flyer had faded somewhat, they had a harder time remembering that some of the myths were actually false, and they were more likely to believe them. This phenomenon can be attributed to a familiarity bias, that is, the more familiar we are with something and the more easily it comes to mind, the more likely we are to believe it is true. In other words, the availability heuristic was at work. Exposure to the myths increased their accessibility, which made them easier to recall. And because people could recall the myths more easily, they were more likely to believe them. The researchers also measured participants’ attitudes toward the vaccination and their behavioral intention, that is, their intent to get vaccinated against the flu. Reading a facts-only flyer led to a more favorable attitude toward the flu vaccine and increased their intention to get vaccinated against the flu, compared with participants in a control condition who had not read a flyer. The same pattern was observed for people who had been in a 30-minute delay condition. That is, even after 30 minutes, when some of the details at faded from memory, people were still more likely to get vaccinated and had a more favorable attitude toward mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 159 8/26/14 4:08 PM Summary and Resources the flu vaccine. However, for the facts-and-myths flyer, a 30-minute delay actually led to less favorable attitudes toward the flu vaccine and lower behavioral intentions, compared with people in the control condition who did not read a flyer. What is worse, when a highly credible source repeats the false information, over time the falsehood is attributed to the credible source, even though the information is false (Schwarz et al., 2007). So, it is best not to repeat false information, even if the purpose is to refute the information. The best way to counter false information is just to state the truth, and to repeat it frequently. By repeating the misinformation, you increase people’s familiarity with it, making them more likely to believe it. Summary and Resources Summary • • • • • • • mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 160 Primes, whether they are subliminal or supraliminal, can influence people’s attitudes and behaviors. Many of these primes are present in the context in which the intended influence occurs, such as scents, music, color, and so on. Other primes can be tied to the product or the person who is seeking to influence someone. Because primes tend to bypass the conscious involvement of a target’s free will, priming is more properly a form of influence, and not persuasion. Primes tend to work through the spreading activation of associated ideas. Once one idea is primed, then other related ideas also become more accessible, leading them to shape the way someone responds to an influence attempt, whether it is an ad, a shopping trip, a hotel check-in, or a dining experience, and so on. Primes only work, however, when a goal is already present. Also, they tend to be effective only when the prime is related to an existing network of beliefs and attitudes. Further, if someone becomes aware of the prime, that person can correct for it easily, and its influence vanishes. Several theories are emerging to help make sense of priming phenomena and nonconscious thinking. Embodied cognition suggests that the physical sensations that a person experiences can influence that person’s thoughts and behaviors. The feelings-as-information theory maintains that affect (i.e., mood and emotion) can influence what a person thinks. Unconscious thought theory proposes that nonconscious thinking is better than conscious thought when it comes to organizing and evaluating complex information. Some primes might work because they activate a stereotype that a person can apply in a specific situation. Of course, the prime would only work among people who hold that stereotype. We saw that the effect of music on purchasing behavior depended on the stereotype associated with the music and the context in which the music was played. Given the novelty and complexity of priming phenomena and the ways they are tested, the field of priming research has seen its share of controversy. Nevertheless, primes remain an important means of guiding attitudes and behavior, with important implications for the study of persuasion and social influence. 8/26/14 4:08 PM Summary and Resources Questions for Reflection and Application 1. Is exerting influence through priming a form of persuasion? Why or why not? 2. What is a stereotype? 3. Find 10 magazine ads that feature models and identify the stereotypes that the advertisers used. What do you think was the intended effect? 4. Visit a department store or other retail outlet. Describe the environment in terms of lighting, textures, smells, and so on. How much of it do you think was designed with the intent to influence consumers? 5. Think back to the discussion of ethics in Chapter 3. Then, choose one of the phenomena described in this chapter and evaluate it in terms of its ethicality. Key Terms embodied cognition A phenomenon in which something you feel in your body can influence what you think. excitation transfer A phenomenon in which what a person feels can influence that person’s attitude toward an object, as those feelings transfer to the object; also called misattribution. feelings-as-information theory A perspective in which affective states are used as an input into what a person thinks; how that person feels becomes a piece of information that the mind uses to evaluate something. lexical prime Words used as primes. mental content What a person thinks. mental process How a person thinks. misattribution A phenomenon in which feelings that arise from one cause can influence unknowingly how a person feels about an unrelated object; also called excitation transfer. mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 161 priming A phenomenon in which a person is exposed to an external stimulus, either consciously or not, and this exposure subsequently influences how the person responds to altogether different stimuli or behaves in a different context. spreading activation A phenomenon in which activating the accessibility of one idea also increases the accessibility of other ideas that are in the same network of associations. stereotype A category that people apply quickly and effortlessly to something they encounter. subliminal prime A prime that occurs below a person’s conscious awareness. supraliminal prime A prime that a person is aware of. unconscious thought theory A perspective in which people’s minds are constantly evaluating information in the background, leading to “intuitive” judgments that can be as accurate and well reasoned as judgments arrived at via effortful reasoning. 9/5/14 10:09 AM mag81516_07_c07_143-162.indd 162 8/26/14 4:08 PM
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