New Influences: Nonconscious Consumer Behavior and Neuroimaging

1. New Influences: Nonconscious Consumer Behavior and Neuroimaging MAR 3503 April 10, 2012

2. 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

3. Priming with products

4. 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, 2000 Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996

5. 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

6. Automatic behavior: Social stereotypes Dijksterhuis et al., 2000

7. 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) Velasquez Dijksterhuis & Knippenberg, 1998

8. Automatic behavior: Social stereotypes # correct on trivia quiz Dijksterhuis & Knippenberg, 1998

9. 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

10. Automatic behavior: Extreme exemplars Schiffer professors Einstein supermodels Dijksterhuis et al., 1998

11. 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

12. 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

13. Metaphor priming Williams & Bargh, 2008

14. Metaphor priming Helzer & Pizarro, 2011

15. The brain

16. EEG • Applies electrodes to the scalp to measure electrical fields in the brain • Can’t pinpoint specific areas • High temporal resolution

17. 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

18. 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

19. MPFC Yoon et al., 2006

20. MPFC • MPFC activation can predict our future behavior • Better than our own words can Falk et al., 2010

21. 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?

22. VMPFC

23. 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”

24. 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”

25. 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

26. Expensive wines taste better

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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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?

31. Benefits of neuroimaging • Can test some things that are subject to demand • Can get more “honest” answers • Can reduce effects of individual differences

32. 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?

33. 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?

34. 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?