Political Ads: What is really going on?

It’s that time again! The time when we are bombarded by political ad after political ad during the presidential campaign season. Every four years we are showered with different ads by our presidential candidates trying to win our vote. We see many different types of ads, whether it is of a candidate trying to build himself up or put his opponent down.  There are many different techniques that are used in order to send subliminal messages to voters. These different techniques have proven to be affective with voters and continue to show up again and again in our presidential campaigns. But do we pick up on all of these messages? In this ad, President Obama is attacked by a variety of sarcastic remarks. This ad makes it obvious that we do not want another four years under Obama, but is it obvious to everyone?

Identification is a technique that is used in this ad. This technique tries to get you to relate to a figure and identify yourself with them. This ad shows Obama taking part in regular day activities. The video shows him golfing, fishing and filling out an NCAA Men’s Basketball bracket. These actions that are shown make you relate to Obama. They might make you feel like; “Wow, Obama is just like me! I can relate to that.”

“Strength of ethnic identification also may have a significant effect on audience evaluations of advertisements (Geng 1997; Webster 1990-91). An individual’s identification with his or her ethnic group is likely to play an important role in how information is processed and how marketing-related decisions are made” (Green).

Identification is a method that is very effective, and if you don’t realize the role identification plays in this ad, you may be getting the wrong message. The ad doesn’t want you to think Obama is your friend. It wants you to realize that Obama isn’t a good leader for our nation.

Another method being used in this ad is fear + direction = action. This is another effective method that issues a warning or a danger that is present (Aronson, 91). This method identifies a danger, creates a fear, and gives direction to stray away from the danger. In this ad, there is a lot of sarcasm used against Obama’s actions. A specific part of the ad says that “Obama is tackling the greatest challenges of our nation”. While this is being said, Obama is predicting who will win the NCAA Championship. This is where the ad uses thick sarcasm to show that Obama is not focusing on our nation’s greatest challenges. This is where the fear is planted. The ad wants you to see that if you vote for Obama, he will continue to ignore our greatest issues. This fear leads you away from voting for Obama, to wanting to vote for Romney.

The last method that was used in this ad was vivid example. This method is extremely effective because it plants vivid images in a person’s head to make them remember a detail or a fact. The best example in this ad is when the voice says, “…consults with key decision makers”. The ad then shows a short clip of Obama saying that he has not spoken to the CEO of BP. Instead, the ad shows a clip of Obama hanging out with Sir Paul McCartney. This is a vivid image that shows Obama ignoring important issues and hanging out with celebrities. This is an image that will stick in voter’s minds when they are filling out their ballots. They will remember Obama having fun and not focusing on his job. This is a strong vivid example that is very effective.

There are many methods used in advertising that are very effective and that we might not always pick up on. Most subliminal messages are retrieved when we are not 100% focused on what we are watching. But how often are we watching television or listening to the radio with 100% focus? Not very often. This is why political ads are so effective. They use these effective methods and attack us while our defenses are down. Hopefully, with this new-found knowledge, you will no longer fall victim to these ads and their sneaky methods.

References:

Aronson, E. (2011). The Social Animal. (11 ed). New York:Worth Publishers

Green, Corliss L. "Ethnic Evaluations of Advertising: Interaction Effects of Strength of Ethnic Identification, Media Placement, and Degree of Racial Composition." JSTOR. Discover, 1999. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4189100?uid=3739920&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101123288563>.

 

Steven DaSilva

sdasilva@regis.edu

Making your mind or chaning it???

In politics, campaign advertising is the use of an advertising campaign through newspapers, radio commercials, television commercials, etc.) to influence the decisions made for and by groups.

It can include several different mediums and span several months over the course of a political campaign. Unlike campaign finance, there are very few regulations governing the process, and many candidates use various techniques to influence their intended audience. Why would they do all these??

Let’s look at the example from Obama 

A new analysis shows that the Obama campaign continues to have superiority over the Romney campaign and its allies when it comes to TV ads. The report also finds that political ads are the most negative since 2000, and that the leading advertiser in congressional races is Karl Rove's tax-exempt group Crossroads GPS.
Why is that so??
Political advertising has become key to winning any political election, especially presidential campaigns. As Election Day draws near, voters are barraged by a plethora of political advertising. When the public turns on their TV, computer, or radio, when they walk outside, or when they look in their mailbox, political advertising is everywhere. Not only does it come from different places, but political advertising comes in many assorted forms as well. They might be attack ads or emotional ads or issue ads. There are almost no rules for political advertising.
Political advertising campaigns appear throughout all forms of media, including broadcast, Internet, print, and outdoor media. In broadcast media, political advertising appears mainly in the form of radio and television ads. Internet media is a new and rapidly growing part of political campaigning. Currently, ads, blogs, wikis, YouTube videos, websites, and podcasts are popular, but the Internet is still evolving. Print media is a diverse form of media. There are newspapers, magazines, periodicals, pamphlets, circulars, and fliers. For outdoor media, billboards, bumper stickers, and lawn signs are commonly used.
There are many different types of political advertisements. Most are attack ads, better know as smear ads. An attack ad is an advertisement meant to attack an opposing candidate or political party. They are generally negative and criticize the adversary’s political platform by highlighting the opponent’s faults and comparing them to the candidate’s own platform. However, biographical, emotional, endorsement, factual, humorous, issue, personal, record, and response ads are also used. A biographical ad is an advertisement that states the candidate’s past careers and education, while an emotional ad is an advertisement that reaches its audience on an emotional level. For example, an emotional ad might show a soldier’s mother grieving over her son’s casket with the message “How many more mothers need to bury their sons before the U.S. army leaves Iraq? Vote for ***. He/she will end this war.”  In this case we see President Obama using health care, economy, jobs, welfare and many different other ideas to help prove his point.

In the final three weeks of September, nearly $90 million worth of ads aired in the presidential race. Erica Franklin Fowler, a professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, says a new record for number of ads should be set next week or the week after. She says that just about the only thing that hasn't taken off in the presidential air wars is the number of spots supporting Republican Mitt Romney.

Even though we might think of a short video clip as something pretty harmless. But increasingly, smart campaign consultants are reading studies and even collaborating with researchers, says Donald Green, PhD, a political science professor at Columbia University who collaborated with the 2006 Rick Perry gubernatorial campaign in Texas to conduct groundbreaking studies of political advertising. “Both sides are looking for an edge, and more rigorous science leads to more efficient campaigning,” he says.

Ted Brader wrote a book “Campaigning for hearts and minds” in which at the heart of the book are ingenious experiments, conducted by Brader during an election, with truly eye-opening results that upset conventional wisdom. They show, for example, that simply changing the music or imagery of ads while retaining the same text provokes completely different responses. Which we clearly see in this clip by Barak Obama. He reveals that politically informed citizens are more easily manipulated by emotional appeals than less-involved citizens and that positive "enthusiasm ads" are in fact more polarizing than negative "fear ads." Black-and-white video images are ten times more likely to signal an appeal to fear or anger than one of enthusiasm or pride, and the emotional appeal triumphs over the logical appeal in nearly three-quarters of all political ads. Brader backs up these surprising findings with an unprecedented survey of emotional appeals in contemporary political campaigns. Politicians do set out to campaign for the hearts and minds of voters, and, for better or for worse; it is primarily through hearts that minds are won.

Now that we have looked how the political ads have been manipulated to get our votes and change our minds. I hope what you get from this reading is that there are so many persuasions going on. At the end of the pay attention and see what they are appealing to in a political ad. So if you pay attention that might help make your mind up about a certain contestant. The choice will be yours at the end of the day once you have analyzed all the different parts of it. 

Jon Zahidi

azahidi@regis.edu

References:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3640346.html

Aronson, E. (2011). The Social Animal. (11 ed). New York:Worth Publishers

English, K., Sweetser, K. D., & Ancu, M. (2011). YouTube-ification of political talk: An examination of persuasion appeals in viral video. American Behavioral Scientist, 55(6), 733-748. doi:10.1177/0002764211398090

Marks, E., Manning, M., & Ajzen, I. (2012). The impact of negative campaign ads. Journal Of Applied Social Psychology, 42(5), 1280-1292. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00912.x 

It's That Time, Again

It’s campaign season and you know what that means; constant bombardment by presidential candidates each pleading their case and vying for the American public’s support through relentless advertising. Though it may seem pointless and overbearing, there is in fact a catalogue of reason and science that is behind each of these messages. This particular advertisement on Barack Obama’s behalf contains a wide array of tactics to appeal to the electorate.  These tactics include  perspective taking/trust building, personal appeal, social suggestion, negativity and a formula called AIDCA (attention , interest, desire, convocation and action). Each of these techniques is incorporated into the below featured advertisement in order to portray Mitt Romney as self-righteous and uncaring and Obama as the clear choice to lead this country.

The first and possibly most evident technique being utilized is perspective taking as a form of gaining trust. By exposing Romney’s private conversation where he is speaking poorly of 47% of Americans, saying they are “dependent upon government,” “believe that they are victims,” and “believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them,” Obama is able to authenticate this message because Romney was unaware of the fact that he was being taped. As detailed by Aronson, when an audience is convinced that someone is not intentionally convincing them of anything they will be more inclined to believe it (Aronson 82). Because this was unintended to be heard by the entire country, what Romney says becomes more credible, which makes it an even bigger slap to the face.

After Romney’s dismal of nearly half the American population, the commercial transitions to personal statements by an array of individuals simply stating that they are a part of the 47 percent. By incorporating these personal appeals as opposed to countering with a plethora of facts and information, this commercial was able to invoke an emotional response. We have become so immune to the relentless political advertisements that we now view them as exaggerated and unreliable. By featuring these everyday people, the message they carry with them is more trustworthy and believable than if it was said by a politician (Roarty). What these personal messages also accomplish is social suggestion; the concept that “someone else is everyone else,” that this handful of people being featured represents the 47% being attacked, including the viewer (Makosky). Converse to Romney’s assertion that Obama voters do not take personal responsibility and are reliant on government, these people are expressing that they handle their responsibilities and are just like you and I.

In addition to these tactics, the negativity and attack on Romney’s ideals were a crucial aspect of this advertisement. In the evolution process, if humans were unable to pick up on negative cues they would fail to ward off danger and predators. Such as, we are already more inclined to be sensitive to these hints (Begala). In this case, Romney is the predator and it is the viewer’s job to identify that and prevent him from causing harm. Though the public consensus seems to be that these negative ads are ineffective and a nuisance, evidence proves quite the contrary (Martin). Survey research has proven that negative campaigning, in fact, increases voter turnout and political participation, though people believe the opposite (Martin).

Each of these tactics was extremely useful in portraying Romney as a villain and Obama as a unifying leader, though ultimately they can be related back to the AIDCA formula (Vize). The commercial opens with Romney’s private conversation, a change of pace from what one typically sees on TV, which can be interpreted as the attention getter that draws the viewer in. Something to make note of is the quick changes in scenes that are sped up in this introduction because it creates the idea that it is bad or wrong, that what Romney is saying is just not right (Vize). They then invoke interest in the advertisement with the content of the conversation and how damning it is. Next,the desire factor is engaged with its portrayal of everyday people claiming to be part of the “47 percent” because it creates a link between them and the viewer. Convocation is made by linking those speaking on the commercial and Obama’s voice/emblem which pairs the positively portrayed 47 percent with President Obama. Finally, the commercial closes with an implied call to action, to vote for the candidate who hears our voices and will be everyone’s president, not just for those who support him, conversely to Romney’s claim.

This cocktail of perspective taking, personal appeals alongside social suggestion, negativity and the AIDCA formula were successful in gaining the trust of the viewer and portraying Obama as the right choice to make in this year’s presidential election. Though, like most, I am generally opposed to advertiser’s trickery and manipulation of the mind, I found this one to be fair and refreshing as opposed to the more hateful ads. In this case, the candidate is simply divulging information regarding his opponent in a non-blasphemous manner. Romney used politically incorrect rhetoric which Obama used to build his rapport with a large portion of the electorate.

Sade Akindele
oakindele@regis.edu

Citations

Aronson, Elliot. "Mass, Communication, Propaganda, and Persuasion." The Social Animal. 11th ed. Publishers: Worth, n.d. 59-111. Print.

Begala, Paul. "More Attack Ads, Please." Newsweek 159.13/14 (2012): 15-16. Print.

Makosky, Vivian Parker. "Identifying Major Techniques of Persuasion." Teaching of Psychology 12.1 (1985): 42-43. Print.

Martin, Paul S. "Inside the Black Box of Negative Campaign Effects: Three Reasons Why Negative Campaigns Mobilize." Political Psychology 25.4 (2004): 545-62. Print.

Roarty, Alex. "Voters Trust Real People, Not Pols." National Journal (2012): 29. Print.

Vize, Anne. "The Art of Persuasion." Screen Education 63 (Spring2011): 66-70. Print.

Peripheral Persuasion

When it come to persuading people in through media according to Richard Petty and John Cacioppo there are two ways to do this. First there is the central route to persuasion, which involves looking at the different arguments, facts, figures, and systemically coming to a decision. Second is the peripheral route to persuasion, which relies on considering the strength of the arguments, by the person in the add, cues that suggest right or wrong, or the attractiveness of the arrangement without giving much thought. The second is a very powerful tool, which has may operations used to persuade you, and can be seen in many political ads you see on tv. Such as this one:

The major operation of persuasion seen in this ad is conditioning. Conditioning is when the audience is repeatedly exposed to the same message. In this add the repeated message is first, a video clip of Obama saying something in 2008 and then again saying the same thing in 2012, then this format is repeated again and again with Obama repeating different things. To show that conditioning in persuasion works, Richard Petty and Pablo Brinol did a study in 2006. While their study they do not believe that their models of persuasion do not replace other models, they do help to understand some unknowns of other models that show conditioning.

A second operation of persuasion used in this article is "fear + direction = action." Matthew McGlone’s study showed that when people are made fearful of something, they are more likely to act. This add ends with the text “Same speeches, Same Promises.” “Are you better off?” This is "fear" part of the equation. Its making you fearful that if Obama is reelected, he will do more of the same and if you were not better of after his first term, more of the same will happen in his second term. The "direction" part comes in at the very end of the ad where it tells you how you can learn more or donate for the Republican National Committee. The "action" part comes from the audience not wanting more of the same, seeing where they can learn more, going there and donating money.

Another operation, shown by John Jost, is based off of political orientation. Jost’s study shows that conservatives are moved by arguments that cause fear and show the issues in a black and white way. Whereas liberals are more likely to be moved by a fact based arguments that use reason more than appealing to strong emotions. Being that this a conservative ad, it would make sense that this ad is more black and white. First in the message that Obama has been repeating the same messages for the past four years. And second, appealing to the emotion of self preservation, asking “Are you better off?”

And an operation not talked about in Elliot Aronson’s “The Social Animal” that I think is new and could come into play in this ad and possibly other ads would be having a change or lack of change in the message of the speaker in the ad. For example, in this ad, does Obama saying the same things in 2008 and in 2012 hurt him or help him? Having a study done to show whether a change in message is a strength of keeping up with the times, or viewed as a negative in change of ideas or inconsistency; or whether staying with the same ideas is seen as positive in consistency, or in a negative way of not being up with the times. I think that in this ad Obama’s same messages are meant to be shown in a negative light, being that in four years he has not changed anything and has not done what he said he set out to do.

Carlos Mejia

mejia540@regis.edu

References

Aronson, E. (2011). The social animal. (11th ed., pp. 59-112). United States of America: Worth Publishing.

Jost, J., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. (2003) Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin. 129, 339-375. 

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/129/3/339/

McGlone, M.S., Bell, R.A., Zaitchik, S., & McGlynn, J, (In Press). Don’t let the flu catch you: Agency assignment in printed educational materials about the H1N1 influenza virus. Journal of Health Communication. 

Petty, R. E., & Briñol, P. (2006). A metacognitive approach to 'implicit' and 'explicit' evaluations: Comment on Gawronski and Bodenhausen (2006). Psychological Bulletin, 132(5), 740-744. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.5.740

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/132/5/740/

Petty, R. E., & Cacciopo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.) Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 123-205). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UPl-PadJSRQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA123&dq=The+elaboration+likelihood+model+of+persuasion&ots=sdq8np4LjP&sig=cQoHrrNOX17OoO6QU25ySBfL9Xw#v=onepage&q=The%20elaboration%20likelihood%20model%20of%20persuasion&f=false

Learning to Make Up Your Own Mind

 

As Election Day approaches, we will continue to be bombarded with political ads on the television, before every YouTube video, and between songs on Pandora. If you're like most Americans you'll hit the mute button, leave the room, or tune it out. You'll think, “Why do they spend so much money on a political campaign? Is it really even that effective?” As it turns out, these ads, as obnoxious as they may be, are persuading you more than you realize.

Take this Obama ad for example.

At first glance, it's difficult to believe that a 30-second clip could persuade a person to vote for Obama. But let's look a little deeper.

Jack Brehm, a well-known social psychologist, came up with the Theory of Psychological Reactance (pp. 377-390). This means that when our freedoms are eliminated or threatened with elimination, we are motivated to reestablish those freedoms. In terms of a political ad, this psychological reactance can be counterproductive in gaining the vote of the viewer. For example, if the message of the ad is saying, “You must vote for [insert name here]!” the viewer may see that as a threat to their freedom to vote for the candidate of their choice. This could cause them to think, “I don't have to vote for him, I can vote for whomever I want,” causing that candidate to lose that viewer's vote.

However, in the above ad, Obama uses this idea of reactance to his advantage. The message of the ad says, “If you vote for Romney, your freedom to have an abortion or to make your own choices as a woman will be eliminated.” Women who view this may react to that threat of freedom and, in turn, reestablish it by voting for Obama.

Another article (pp. 213-231) talks about the “magnitude of reactance,” or the size of the reaction when a person's freedoms are threatened. Two of the variables that impact the magnitude of reactance are the importance of the freedom and the size of the threat. The more important the freedom is to the person, the bigger the reaction will be. Similarly, the bigger the threat of that freedom, the harder the person will fight to maintain their freedom. For some women, the freedom to have an abortion, or just to have the choice to have an abortion, is pretty important. The threat to overturn Roe v. Wade and outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, could be considered a very large threat. That may lead to women choosing to reestablish their freedom by voting for Obama instead of Romney.

In addition to using reactance to gain the votes of viewers, Obama also uses the very common persuasive technique of fear. In his book Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work, Ted Brader makes the point that, “. . . fear ads do not merely deliver a worrisome message, but also rely heavily on images, music, and sound effects to make voters uneasy” (8). The video clip begins with eight somber, worried, or even angry women, indicating that something is clearly wrong. The music playing in the background, when paired with the message, gives the viewers that uneasy feeling that Brader mentions. However, there is a shift in the music at the end of the video when Obama comes on the screen, giving the video a now hopeful, “light at the end of the tunnel” feeling to it.

Another common technique used to persuade the audience is credibility. This is something we see every day. Certain toothpaste brands claim to be the “#1 brand recommended by dentists.” Children's medicine is “recommended by most pediatricians.” Is this effective? Of course! Dentists are virtually guaranteed to be more educated on the right kind of toothpaste to use than the average person, as are pediatricians with children's medicine. These things are their business, so why shouldn't we believe them? In the same way, this ad uses the Washington Post, ABC News, and a CNN Debate as sources. News is their business, so logically we're going to believe what they say. An article analyzing studies conducted over the past 50 years indicates that, when it comes to changes in attitude, high-credibility sources are more persuasive than low-credibility sources. So if the person watching the political ad views these sources as credible, based on expertise and trustworthiness, they are more likely to be persuaded by the ad.

One last persuasion technique, which is similar to credibility but not supported by scientific studies, only through my own thoughts, is what I'll call the Average Joe technique. In this ad, the Democratic National Committee uses a woman by the name of Jenni to tell her story. She's no one famous, we don't even get her last name. She's just an Average Joe. This means she does not have high credibility. However, it does give her one advantage. She's relatable to everyone. Because she's just a regular citizen, people will be able to relate to her better than they would to some famous politician. If the person speaking in the ad is relatable, the chances of persuading the viewers is much higher.

In addition to all of these persuasive techniques, one way to effectively persuade people is to know the audience and appeal to them. The Obama ad does this effectively. In the book The Social Animal, Eliot Aronson looks at 44 years of data collected by John Jost and his colleagues from over 22,000 people. The results indicate that “[Conservatives] are far more moved by arguments that induce fear and cast issues in simple black and white terms. Liberals, on the other hand, tend to respond to more nuanced, fact-based arguments that appeal to reason rather than strong emotions” (103). If the target audience of this ad is conservative women, they did a good job of instilling fear, which would be the most effective way to persuade them, as shown by Jost's work.

Now, looking back on that seemingly simplistic ad, I hope you can see all the complex forms of persuasion that are taking place. So what should you do with all this newly found information? Pay attention the next time a political ad comes on during a commercial break. Instead of muting the TV or ignoring the ad altogether, take the time to analyze it and figure out how they're trying to persuade you. Maybe then it'll be a little less like brainwashing and a little more like making up your own mind.

Emma Shewmaker

eshewmaker@regis.edu

Iconic Persuasion

            Come election time we must prepare ourselves to be bombarded with political ads seeking to sway you one way or another. These ads seek to gain your vote and nothing more. They do not want to inform the voter or give them the facts they need to make a rational decision. Many schemes and techniques are put into use to take advantage of a lost mind. 

Rather than relying on a careful process of weighing and considering the strength of arguments, the person responds to simple, often irrelevant cues that suggest the rightness, wrongness, or attractiveness of an argument without giving it much thought” (Aronson, 73).

We are all lost minds, and if we only get our information from these ads then our vulnerability to their words is greatly increased.

Take into account this political ad for Barrack Obama:

Identification-

            Identification is the most obvious and main method of persuasion in this ad. This ad stars and is the perspective of the R&B icon Alicia Keys. Throughout the ad she is seen giving speeches and communicating with average people promoting Barack Obama and women’s rights. Many of us admire Mrs. Keys for her music and her fame and because of this we are more likely to accept her opinion. Alicia Keys was a great person to execute this method of persuasion given her reputation. She is a kind, soft-spoken person whose music empowers women, and what is the main focus of this ad? To empower women.

            Another group we may be able to identify with is black women. Throughout this ad we see nothing but black women banding together for Barack Obama. If you are a black woman, you may feel the need to stay consistent with who you are. We see this, but we do not realize that the commercial has been framed to give us something to stay consistent with of their choosing.

            Identification is a very powerful method of persuasion. It brings forth a strong commitment without rational thought. A study showed that loyal customers tend to spend more than satisfied customers, “the main effect of customer identification on customer spending was strong, stronger than the customer satisfaction→customer spending effect” (Netemeyer). Barack Obama takes advantage of this by capitalizing on your loyalty rather than on your satisfaction.

Conditioning-

            This ad pairs two things together, powerful women and Barack Obama basically stating that powerful women vote for Barack Obama. This leads us to believe that voting for Obama will make us a powerful woman (if we are women). Alicia Keys again serves as a perfect example of a powerful women voting in his favor. They pair these two things together for us so we don’t have to, this is another way to get us to think irrationally but in favor of the candidate.

Reciprocity-

             This method of convincing is when we feel the need to return a favor. We as human beings may feel in debt to others if they have helped us:

There is good evidence that a rule for reciprocity governs much of human experience: We report liking those who report liking us; we cooperate with cooperators and compete with competitors; we self-disclose to those who have disclosed themselves to us; we try to harm those who have tried to harm us; in negotiations, we make concessions to those who have made concessions to us; and we provide gifts, favors, services, and aid to those who have provided us with these things” (Cialdini).

If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. In the ad Alicia Keys says, “And now it’s our turn to thank him by voting for president Obama in November.” She gives us the idea that women “owe” Obama in a sense and since he has done so much for women, we feel compelled to vote for him to pay him back.

Social Media-

            Alicia Keys is frequently tweeting about the events she goes to, which is intriguing. Why show her tweets that tell us how she feels about the people and Barack Obama? I thought about the role this played in the ad, this method was not chosen by accident, there are many ways to express what she is saying, but they chose Twitter. The use of social media in this ad gives it a sense of modernity. It projects a feeling of progress onto us and makes us feel like we are moving forward.

            These campaigns only seek to gain your vote. A well informed voter may not yield the result the candidates wants, so instead the voter is less informed and more persuaded. A play on irrational thought is more likely to sway the voter than facts and truths.

References:

Aronson, E. (2011). The social animal. (eleventh ed.). New York: Worth Publishers.

Cialdini, R. B., Green, B. L., & Rusch, A. J. (1992). When tactical pronouncements of change become real change: The case of reciprocal persuasion. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 63(1), 30-40. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.63.1.30

Netemeyer, R. G., Heilman, C. M., & Maxham, J. (2012). Identification with the retail organization and customer-perceived employee similarity: Effects on customer spending. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 97(5), 1049-1058. doi:10.1037/a0028792

Author:

Walter Zavala

wzavala@regis.edu

Political Campaigning: Persuasion or Manipulation?

Each and every day, we are barraged with images and advertisements persuading us to buy the newest gadgets, try a restaurant’s new hamburger, or say no drugs. Yet, nowhere is persuasion of this kind more prevalent than within political advertising. As the election season comes around, these ads are increasingly congesting the flow of media. But why is so much importance placed on advertising during this season? Surely these 60 seconds clips on television do not have the sole power to sway voters’ opinions towards one candidate or another. People are rational thinkers who make reasonable and well-though-out decisions, right? Well, unfortunately, this is not entirely true, and is the primary reason that politicians are willing to spend millions dollars each campaign season on advertisements persuading the public to vote for them. Social psychologists have identified a list of persuasive techniques that are effective and easy to imbed into almost any advertisement. These factors that convince people to buy a restaurant’s new “Triple Bacon Super Cheeseburger Supreme” are the same factors that can persuade people to place their vote in the favor of one candidate versus another. These techniques are used repeatedly throughout advertising for one simple reason: they work. This shows that although people are rational creatures, many decisions that we make are manipulated through persuasion and are not products of reason.  To demonstrate the use of some of these techniques, here is an ad from this year’s political season:

One of the most predominant persuasive techniques used in this ad is conditioning. This the learning theory developed by Ivan Pavlov which suggests that if a stimulus that elicits a certain behavior is is paired with a second stimulus that does not elicit that same behavior, eventually, the second stimulus will elicit that behavior^[1]. He demonstrated this in his famous experiment in which he presented his dogs with food, which would cause them to salivate. Then, he would ring a bell and present them with the food at the same time. After a period of trials, eventually just the sound of the bell ringing would cause the dogs to salivate— a response that they did not initially have to that stimulus^[1]. In essence, through classical conditioning, we become conditioned to have the same response to two previously unrelated things. This model works the same way through persuasion. Throughout this ad, Romney’s statement of knowing how jobs come and how jobs go is repeatedly paired with accounts of him outsourcing jobs. Outsourcing jobs is something that many Americans have negative feelings towards— especially during a time when unemployment is so high. So, by repeatedly pairing Romney’s statement with the negative emotion that many have towards outsourcing jobs, this ad has the power to create negative feelings within the viewer towards Romney, simply through that repetition.

Closely related to the conditioning used in this advertisement is the scarcity tactic. This is the idea that when there is less of something, people want it more^[2]. Currently, jobs in this country are perceived as quite scarce. This causes people to be more protective over their own jobs, but also over American jobs in general. This further feeds the negative emotion towards the evidence presented on Romney outsourcing American jobs.

Also used in this ad is the persuasive tool of reactance. This idea suggests that when people’s freedom or rights are threatened, they more likely to take the necessary steps towards protecting them^[2]. Throughout this ad, the impression is made upon the viewer that if Romney were to be elected, more American jobs would be outsourced to other countries. Then, at the end of the advertisement, the Obama + Biden “Truth Team” logo is shown, signaling to the viewer that voting for Obama is the clear way to prevent this outsourcing from happening. American jobs are something that, as Americans, we feel we are entitled to, so we see them as a right. Throughout the ad, the argument is made that Romney is evidently threatening that right. Therefore, when viewers feel as though their rights are being threatened by one candidate, this causes them to take the necessary steps towards protecting those rights— by voting for the opposing candidate. This is also a prime example of the idea that fear+direction=action. In a series of studies by Howard Leventhal and his associates, it was found that if people are presented with fear-arousing information, along with instructions as to how to prevent that fear, people are much more likely to take the preventative steps provided to them^[3]. By pairing Romney with the perceived notion of losing jobs to other countries, Romney himself becomes an object of fear. Then, the clear direction presented for avoiding this fear is voting for Obama. By providing this instruction for avoiding this fear, viewers are more likely to take the necessary preventative steps by voting for Obama, which is exactly the response that this ad is looking for.

Still, none of these techniques would be as effective as they are without the fact that humans do not think rationally 100% of the time. We are prone to making snap decisions, responding mindlessly to social cues, and, as a result, being easily persuaded by simple techniques. This is most likely to happen when we are presented information while we are distracted. As a result, this is what makes these campaign ads on television so effective. The viewer is presented with persuasive information in an environment where they are not completely focused, and consequently, they are much more susceptible to being persuaded by these flawed arguments. This causes people to often make unconscious decisions, based off of information that they were unknowingly persuaded by. Therefore, the ability to be persuaded is almost completely out of the control of the viewer. For some, this may present ethical issues in that people’s choices are being manipulated to a certain degree. However, this manipulation may be quite irrelevant within the grand scheme of the campaign season. A 2011 study by Gerber et al. has found that although campaign ads have strong effects on voting preferences, this effect is very short^[4]. This suggests that although these ads can be extremely manipulative towards people’s decision making, the short-lived effects of this manipulation weakens the argument of the unethical nature of these ads, and at the same time, may not make the money spent on these advertisements worthwhile.

In essence, it is important to realize how easy it is to be persuaded by any one of these techniques, and that they are present in almost every form of advertisement within the media. Because these techniques are so widely used within advertising, they are often difficult to recognize. Still, the best way to avoid being persuaded by these techniques is to simply avoid distractions when information is being presented, and to carefully weigh all relevant factors when making important decisions— like voting for a world leader. These persuasive techniques are powerful, but only for a short term, so ultimately decision lies within us as voters: to allow our decisions to be manipulated through simple persuasive techniques, or to rise above the media, and make sound, reasonable, conscious decisions. The choice is ours.

Mariah Pope

mpope@regis.edu

                                                                                                                                                                           

References:

[1] Pavlov, I. P. (2003). Conditioned reflexes. London: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from

              http://books.google.com/bookshl=en&lr=&id=cknrYDqAClkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=conditioned

              reflexes&ots=Kzrso5-dFe&sig=8T4WBm6qLe74faj7V4cX1nT8R4k

[2] Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Harnessing the power of persuasion. Harvard Business Review, Retrieved from

              http://uspace.shef.ac.uk/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/61756-102-1117566/HarnessingTheScienceofPersuasion.pdf

[3] Freedman, J. (1963). Attitudinal effects of inadequate justification. Journal of Personality, 31, 371-385.

[4] Gerber, A. S., Gimpel, J. G., Green, D. P., & Shaw, D. R. (2011). How large and long-lasting are the persuasive effects of televised

              campaign ads? Results from a randomized field experiment. American Political Science Review, 105, 135-150.