New Influences: Nonconscious Consumer Behavior and

NeuroimagingMAR 3503

April 10, 2012

Priming with products

• Participants completed a filler questionnaire in a room that was scented like a citrus cleaning product, or not

• They then were asked to eat a crumbly cookie• Their hand movements while they ate were

videotaped, and then were coded for how neat the person was

Priming with products

Automatic behavior: Social stereotypes

• When participants were primed in a scrambled sentence task with politicians (a group known for their long-windedness), they wrote longer political essays than those not primed

• When participants were primed with words related to the elderly (i.e., gray, Florida, wrinkled, bingo, etc), they walked more slowly in comparison to a control group

Dijksterhuis & Knippenberg, 2000Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996

Automatic behavior: Social stereotypes

• Participants were subliminally primed with elderly words during a LDT task (old, gray, bingo) or neutral words

• After the task, they were given a surprise recall task for the words in the LDT

• Participants were then split into those that had a lot of previous contact with the elderly and those that had little contact with the elderly

Dijksterhuis et al., 2000

Automatic behavior: Social stereotypes

Dijksterhuis et al., 2000

Automatic behavior: Social stereotypes

• Stereotypes:– Professors (study 2)– Soccer hooligans (study 3)

• Priming procedure: write about the behavior, lifestyle, appearance, and attributes of the typical X– No prime, 2 minute prime, 9 minute prime

• Trivia quiz: 60 questions– E.g., “Who painted La Guernica?” a) Dali; b) Miro;

c) Picasso; d) VelasquezDijksterhuis & Knippenberg, 1998

Automatic behavior: Social stereotypes

Dijksterhuis & Knippenberg, 1998

# correct on trivia quiz

Automatic behavior: Extreme exemplars

• Stereotypes or extreme exemplars– Professors or supermodels– Einstein or Claudia Schiffer

• Priming procedure: write about the behavior, lifestyle, appearance, and attributes of X for 5 minutes

• Trivia quiz: 20 questions– E.g., “Who painted La Guernica?” a) Dali; b) Miro;

c) Picasso; d) Velazquez

Dijksterhuis et al., 1998

Automatic behavior: Extreme exemplars

Dijksterhuis et al., 1998

professors

supermodels

Einstein

Schiffer

Metaphor priming

• Participants were asked to recall and write about a time when they were socially included or socially excluded

• They then estimated the ambient temperature of the room

Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008

Metaphor priming

• Participants marked 2 dots on a Cartesian plane, either close together or far apart

• They then rated the strength of the bonds they felt to their siblings, their parents, and their hometown

Williams & Bargh, 2008

Metaphor priming

Williams & Bargh, 2008

Metaphor priming

Helzer & Pizarro, 2011

The brain

EEG

• Applies electrodes to the scalp to measure electrical fields in the brain– Can’t pinpoint specific

areas– High temporal resolution

fMRI

• Uses an MRI scanner to measure a BOLD (blood oxygen level-dependent) signal– Blood flow tells you

what parts of the brain are working particularly hard

– Higher spatial resolution, lower temporal resolution

Medial Prefrontal Cortex• MPFC is highly related to

self-referential thought• Damage to the PFC can

result in a lack of self-reflection, introspection, daydreaming

• MPFC activation is default activity, may indicate that self-referential thought is the norm

Kelley et al., 2002; Wheeler et al., 1997

MPFC

Yoon et al., 2006

MPFC

• MPFC activation can predict our future behavior– Better than our own

words can

Falk et al., 2010

VMPFC

• Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex• This area is associated with reward– Anticipated reward as well as experienced reward

• Will it taste good? Does it taste good?

VMPFC

Coke versus Pepsi

• When tasting both unlabeled, people are indifferent between them

• The main area of activity is the VMPFC– This area is associated

with reward– “Mmm, this tastes good”

Coke versus Pepsi

• When tasting them both labeled, people tend to prefer coke

• The VMPFC is active, but so is the DLPFC– This area is associated

with emotional and deliberative cognition

– “I like Coke”

OFC

• The orbitofrontal cortex is involved in perception of emotional states– Helps integrate them into decisions– If this region is destroyed, people cannot make

good decisions• They don’t have a feeling telling them what they want

or should do– One of the few brain regions that is relatively

larger in humans than primates

Expensive wines taste better

Insula

• Active in anticipation and experience of negative stimuli– Warns us about bad things– Plays a big role in addiction

Insula

• The insula is active when we think about losses (vs. gains)– It’s heavily involved in risk-aversion

• It anticipates negative visual stimuli– Horror movies!

• When customers think they’re being treated unfairly, their insula becomes active

Placebo effects

• The insula demonstrates that placebo effects actually alter the experience of pain– Insula activity decreases

when people believe they have taken an effective pain reliever

Wager et al., 2004

Neuromarketing

• Now that we’re learning what certain areas of the brain do, can we apply that information to more applied research?

• This is called neuromarketing– Can we see how people react to a movie or

beverage or song at a neural level, before it goes on the market?

Benefits of neuroimaging

• Can test some things that are subject to demand

• Can get more “honest” answers

• Can reduce effects of individual differences

Some practical questions

• What can we gain from neuromarketing? Does it have a strong advantage over traditional methods of market research?

• How much can we extrapolate from neuroimaging? Does it reflect real behavior and preferences?

Some ethical questions

• Is it okay that businesses will be able to “read the minds” of their consumers?

• Is it okay that businesses may be able to capitalize on individual weaknesses or exploit particular neurological traits?

• Could businesses create a “perfect” product that people won’t be able to resist?

Summary• We can influence behavior nonconsciously– Via assimilation or contrast– Via metaphors

• Understanding the workings of the brain is important– Certain brain regions are especially involved in

consumer decisions– Marketing firms are using this knowledge to design

and implement new products• Next time: How can we make better consumers

and better firms?