Fear and Loving in Las Vegas: Evolution, Emotion, and Persuasion

Abstract

How do arousal-inducing contexts, such as frightening or romantic television programs, influence the effectiveness of basic persuasion heuristics? Different predictions are made by three theoretical models: A general arousal model predicts that arousal should increase effectiveness of heuristics; an affective valence model predicts that effectiveness should depend on whether the context elicits positive or negative affect; an evolutionary model predicts that persuasiveness should depend on both the specific emotion that is elicited and the content of the particular heuristic. Three experiments examined how fear-inducing versus romantic contexts influenced the effectiveness of two widely used heuristics—social proof (e.g., “most popular”) and scarcity (e.g., “limited edition”). Results supported predictions from an evolutionary model, showing that fear can lead scarcity appeals to be counter-persuasive, and that romantic desire can lead social proof appeals to be counter-persuasive. The findings highlight how an evolutionary theoretical approach can lead to novel theoretical and practical marketing insights.

Ovulation, Female Competition, and Product Choice: Hormonal Influences on Consumer Behavior

“…The hypotheses in the current set of studies were derived from theory and research based on the Ovulatory Shift Hypothesis Thornhill 1998, 2008) and on research in evolutionary consumer behavior (Griskevicius, Goldstein et al 2009Van den Bergh, Dewitte and Warlop 2008). It is certainly possible that predictions regarding ovulatory hormones and product choice might be generated by other perspectives.…”

A Goal-Based Model of Product Evaluation and Choice

“…This effect should not only increase the evaluation of coffee, but should also increase the evaluation of other products that help the consumer to be alert (e.g., caffeinated cola). This means-to-goal activation process may account for unexpected priming effects like food consumption activating a pleasure goal which in turn increases the desire for a massage (Wadhwa, Shiv, and Nowlis 2008), fearful stimuli (which may activate a safety goal) increasing the desire for social goods (Griskevicius et al 2009), and bikinis (which may activate a desire goal) influencing impatience (Van den Bergh, . Because of the relative nature of goal activation, the means-to-goal activation process can also make goals that are unrelated to the activated means less important, leading to lower evaluations of products that satisfy those unrelated goals.…”

Influence of different positive emotions on persuasion processing: A functional evolutionary approach.

“…As a result, individuals in a negative state are motivated to engage in detailoriented, systematic processing, gathering information to figure out how to improve their situation. In contrast, individuals in a positive state have little reason to invest energy in effortful processing.Although most psychologists studying emotion and social cognition emphasize affect valence as the critical aspect of emotional experience, a growing body of research suggests that different emotions of the same valence may influence cognition in quite different ways (e.g., Bodenhausen, Kramer, & Susser, 1994;DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, & Rucker, 2000;DeSteno et al, 2004;Keltner et al, 1994;Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006;Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Sundie, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2009;Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2003;Lerner, Small, Loewenstein, 2004;Mackie et al, 2000;Tiedens & Linton, 2001). For example, fear leads people to perceive greater risk in the environment and to be more risk averse, whereas anger appears to inhibit risk perception and to facilitate risk seeking (Lerner & Keltner, 2001).…”