The Persuasive Effects of Emotive Visual Imagery: Superficial Manipulation or the Product of Passionate Reason?

Abstract

This study reevaluates the persuasive impact of emotional visual appeals within politics and examines two different explanations for their effects. One possibility is that the effects of emotive visual images are essentially superficial in nature, consistent with the view that feelings aroused by an affective image are transferred somewhat mechanically to a political candidate or cause with which it is paired. This transfer-of-affect explanation suggests that emotional appeals may work best among the least informed voters or those paying the least attention to a persuasive political message. The second possibility is that emotional appeals work via passionate reason, in which affective responses to an emotive image are integrated with, and potentially bias, reasoned thought about the accompanying message. This integrated approach leads to the counterintuitive prediction that individuals who are most highly involved in an issue (and who know the most about it) are most influenced by emotional imagery. This prediction arises from growing evidence that people highly involved in value-laden social issues generate the strongest emotional responses to issue-related persuasive appeals. These two models were tested in a study in which undergraduate students were presented with a picture of a cute or an ugly animal and a flyer from an organization advocating a pro-or anti-environment stance with respect to preserving the animal's habitat. The responses showed that emotive imagery was most persuasive among the most involved environment supporters, providing clear evidence of passionate reasoning.KEY WORDS: persuasion, attitude change, emotive imagery, attitude strength, environment.Despite the pervasive use of emotionally laden imagery to influence voters, solicit monetary contributions, and spur citizens to political action, we still know

Physical Attractiveness of an Animal Species as a Decision Factor for its Preservation

“…The flyer and its content had also been previously tested for plausibility and neutrality, and it had been established that college students find the flyer realistic and credible (See Huddy and Gunnthorsdottir 2000). The pictures of the two species were pretested in an undergraduate business class during two different class sessions, one for each species (n=30 for bats, n=19 for apes).…”

“…Participants' prior attitude towards the environment was assessed using a questionnaire consisting of 14 questions (responses on seven-point Likert Scales), previously used by Seligman, Syme, and Gilchrist (1994) and Huddy and Gunnthorsdottir (2000), and adapted to local conditions (see Appendix 2). The questions pit environmental protection against respondents' material selfinterest.…”

“…An animal's physical attractiveness, both in the pretest and in the main experiment, was measured by a questionnaire developed and previously used by Huddy and Gunnthorsdottir (2000). The version of the scale used here consists of twelve four-point unipolar items measuring the extent to which an animal possesses various aspects of attractiveness (cute, nasty, dangerous, beautiful, repulsive, obnoxious, cuddly, majestic, dirty, friendly, hostile, and nice).…”

Effects of News Stereotypes on the Perception of Facial Threat

“…Finally, research should investigate the hypothesized effects with a non-student sample, as general advertising research has given proof for the fact that higher educated people-for several reasons-are more resistant against attempts of influence than citizens with lower formal education (Hodson & Busseri, 2012;Huddy & Gunnthorsdottir, 2000). In these premises, negation presumably is affected by participant's education: Different (non-student) samples may show less negation during exposure and thus could show even stronger effects compared to the student sample of the present study.…”

Lights, camera … action? Altered attitudes and behaviour in response to the climate change film The Age of Stupid

“…There is a well-documented gap between environmental attitudes (which are more amenable to change through information provision), and pro-environmental behaviour (Gatersleben et al, 2002;Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002). In an attempt to effectively engage the public, visual and emotionally-based appeals are frequently employed within the environmental movement (Huddy and Gunnthorsdottir, 2000). Nicholson-Cole (2005, p.258) suggests that visual media offer many advantages for communicating motivating messages, including "the capacity to convey strong messages, making them easy to remember; condense complex information and communicate new content; provide the basis for personal thoughts and conversations, contributing to people's memory and issue-awareness; [and] communicate ideas in an instant".…”