The Crocodile Tears of Political Campaigning

It’s political campaign season and the presidential advertisements are clogging the regular ones while you are trying to watch television in peace. I believe these advertisements are getting more and more annoying and hopefully most people think the same as me. The reason being is that all they do is try to attack their opponent. What most people don’t realize is that it is most likely working. These advertisements are subliminally, and in some cases boldly, persuading you. As Aronson stated “Simply because we think we are immune to persuasion does not necessarily mean we are immune” (Aronson, 2011 pp 68). These advertisements induce emotion in its audience simply by following a few persuasion factors. What they know is that “when people are scared and angry, facts and figures alone are not very convincing” (Aronson, 2011 pp 71). One example would be the following advertisement that is made by Obama’s campaign to bring fear and anger towards Romney. The factors being used to persuade us are: Credibility, fear + direction= action, reactance, perspective talking, vivid examples, and identification. Let’s break each one down so we can fully understand what is going on.

Credibility

“Increasing source credibility can be done by ensuring that the source is an expert, making the source trustworthy, or increasing the similarity between the target of the message and the source” (Leding). By creating a credible source we choose to believe it because how can it be wrong if someone who is smart and important said it? In truth, most of the credible sources are not shown in commercials like these. But even so many people believe that Romney is a bad person who goes back on his word by the end of the commercial. By discrediting Romney, people will believe Obama will be the better president.

Fear + Direction= Action

This is a very common one seen in campaign advertisements. This particular advertisement targets women and middle-class citizens by showing clips of Romney saying things like he will tax everyone more and he does not agree with abortions. This causes fear in those two audiences. When Obama’s campaign makes this advertisement to show the truth, it gives direction for them to vote against Romney. This can also tie in with cognitive dissonance.  “Cognitive dissonance (an unpleasant feeling) is aroused when an individual says or does something that runs counter to his or her own beliefs, especially if this action threatens the individual’s self-concept of being a decent or rational person” (Aronson, 1999). When Romney said things like he disagrees with abortion and wants to tax everyone it goes against the belief of the audience.

Reactance

This factor builds on fear. When someone hears Romney say he will take things away or disagrees with their beliefs, it causes the feeling that their freedom is being threatened. This helps take voters away from Romney because they disagree with him.

Perspective talking

This whole advertisement is perspective talking because it is convincing us that Romney is a terrible person who goes back on his word when truthfully he may not be. This is very similar to a psychological experiment done in the 1950s by Solomon Asch. Asch conducted an experiment which showed social pressure lead to a person to do something that was incorrect. In his experiment he had a few "confederates"(people who knew what was going on) and regular participants. The experimenter would then show a piece of paper with a line on it, then show another paper with 3 lines on it and ask which one matched the first line. The confederates would say an obviously wrong answer and the participants would agree with them. This trial was repeated 18 times and in 12 of them, the participants answered wrong and said the confederate's answer. This study made Asch famous because it showed people were tricked to get convinced that the confederate was right. This connects to the commercial because Obama's campaign successfully made Romney look like a terrible person and most likely tricked many people to be convinced to not vote for him. 

Vivid examples

This is shown with the documents being flashed on the screen. Vivid examples are more powerful then statistics and do not bore the audience. By flashing a document that has highlighted words, it becomes a visual representation of what Romney stated. This helps the audience to not have to read the document and get bored with what is on the screen and also gives credible sources for them to believe.

Identification

Identification is when you can relate to what is being said. Say if you are a coal miner and you saw the presidential debate where Romney said he would help bring up the use of coal, you would be identifying yourself with him and would most likely vote for him. Identification is used in the advertisement with women and taxpayers. Just as the fear factor, this advertisement brings fear to people's freedom and they identify themselves as people who are pro-abortion and for taxing the rich. Knowing that Romney is against those issues they would rather choose another candidate to vote for, like Obama.

My belief is that advertisements that attack other groups/ organizations are not right. This advertisement blatantly tells us how terrible Romney is and is an attack against him. This is probably the most efficient way to convince people, but if you think about it, do you want a president to have won by burning his opponent to the ground (hypothetically)? I believe that presidential candidates should keep to themselves by just advertising for their own campaigns. My belief is probably one in a million and never will be considered, but it is some food for thought. These commercials are slowly becoming more and more unethical by providing us with false and misleading information. They give you small clips of certain phrases The candidates are stating and adding more to it. One must actually research what quote and what contexts the quote is coming from before actually making a decision whether or not to like it. Not only that but also most of the citations being used are very short, vague, and unknown by many. Before these citations can be accredited there must be more background information that you must look at before making a decision. Overall, campaign ads like these are very biased and should not be completely believed unless you actually do the research yourself. 

References:
Aronson, E. (1999). The power of self-persuasion. American psychologist, 54(11), 875-884. 
           doi:10.1037/h0088188

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

Leding, J. K. (2012). False memories and persuasion strategies. Review of general psychology, 16(3),    
           256-268. Doi:1037/10027700

Author:
Julia Wrona
jwrona@regis.edu