Fear Appeals: If You Don't Read This Blog Gypsies Will Kidnap You...

(Early Favorite For a 2009 Darwin Award?)


My final post is going to be about fear appeals in anti-drug advertisements, public service announcements, whatever those things are called. “Truth” television spots target cigarettes while “Above the Influence” is an anti-marijuana campaign. Both campaigns use fear appeals to try to persuade people to avoid cigarettes or drugs.
Appealing to a person’s fear of the negative consequences of a certain action can be an effective way of persuading him/her to avoid that behavior. There are, however, four problems of fear appeals that must be avoided. One, fear appeals must not induce too much fear. The distinction: OK—An above the influence ad says, “If you smoke weed, you will get lazy and fat.” Not OK—An above the influence ad says, “If you smoke weed, your entire family will inexplicably die of swine flu.” That’s a little too much fear. Two, fear appeals must increase the target’s perceived vulnerability. If a target doesn’t feel vulnerable to the negative consequences that the fear appeal is warning against, there is no motivation for behavior change. Three, fear appeals must provide a clear path to prevention, also called response efficacy. With truth and above the influence the path is pretty simple and clearly laid out, stop smoking. Finally, fear appeals must suggest easy enactment of prevention behavior, also called self-efficacy. People are less likely to engage in prevention behavior if it seems very difficult to do so.
One example of a fear appeal in a truth commercial is the song “You Don’t Always Die From Tobacco”. It is sung by a man who has had a tracheotomy and uses a hand-held device to stimulate his vocal chords and speak. He is singing in the middle of a busy New York City street in front of a sizable audience He sings, “You don’t always die from tobacco, sometimes you just lose a lung, oh you don’t always die from tobacco, sometimes they just snip out your tongue, and you won’t sing worth a heck, with a big hole in your neck, no you don’t always die from tobacco.” The lyrics present one aspect of the fear appeal. It mentions three specific consequences of smoking which serve to heighten a smoker’s perceived vulnerability. Actually seeing the man with a hole in his neck also increases perceived vulnerability because he is an in-the-flesh example of what can happen if you don’t engage in prevention behavior. The path to prevention is clear and the prevention behavior is easy, simply stop smoking. The truth campaign effectively utilizes fear appeals to combat deadly diseases that result from smoking cigarettes.

Link:
"You Don't Always Die From Tobacco" commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHvZazd4IM

Extreme Makeover: Ty Pennington's Image Edition

(Everybody! Come see how good I look)


Altruism is defined as the unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others. Among the many types of helping one person can do for another, altruistic helping is the most admirable. Altruistic helping is when a helper seeks to increase another’s welfare and expects nothing in return. This kind of helping is very rare, as most helping actions are motivated by the hope of some type of reward being granted to the helper, even if that hope is subconscious.
Most helping is egoistic. Egoistic helping is when a helper seeks to increase his/her own welfare by helping another. Egoistic helping is featured prominently in one of primetime televison’s most popular programs, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. On the show, ABC selects one family in need (many of which engage in altruistic helping despite their tough living conditions) and rewards the family’s selfless actions with a makeover of their home. ABC’s helping, however, is egoistically motivated. While it may be the most heartwarming program on television, it is still a TV show and ABC makes money off of advertising during the show. Ty Pennington hosts the show and is portrayed as a saint that tours the country helping people because he possesses true altruism and genuinely loves to help people. Ty Pennington may have the biggest heart on the planet, I’m sure he loves his job because of all the great work he gets to do, but it is just that, a job. Pennington gets paid, thus by helping he is improving his own welfare. He gains fame; that is a reward for helping. He is portrayed in the national media as this great, selfless man; that is a reward for helping. Other people in the show are also egoistically motivated. Sears for example donates many of the products installed in the new homes, but in doing so they are advertising. The amount of product placement in Extreme Makeover is baffling. By donating appliances at a microscopic cost to the company, Sears appears to the national audience like a caring, socially responsible and moral corporation. Construction companies compete intensely for the privilege of being able to work on the Extreme Makeover house because they get free advertisement and the “good-guy” image in the community and nationwide. There is a lot of politicking that goes on behind the scenes in selecting which contractor gets to provide the construction team for the show.
Being guilty of helping people for egoistic reasons doesn’t make Ty Pennington a bad man. At least he is helping. It is very difficult to find people that help others for truly altruistic reasons because sometimes when we help, rewards are thrust upon us that we don’t consciously expect, although we may have subconsciously considered the benefit to our own welfare when we decided to help others. It is a shame, however, that most of America doesn’t realize the amount of greed and corporate profit that comes hand in hand with this seemingly altruistic show.

Contact Hypothesis: Healing Hatred in the American League East Since 1954

The World Baseball Classic is a new joint venture between Major League Baseball and other professional leagues around the world. Created in order to further promote the game around the globe, the tournament features 16 national teams of mostly professional players. Since the WBC is the first international baseball tournament in which national teams feature professional players from the major leagues around the world including Major League Baseball, it provides an opportunity for professional teammates to play against each other on opposing international teams. It also allows for professional rivals to play and bond on the same international team.
The relationships forged on the United States national baseball team are a great example of the contact hypothesis (Allport 1954). The contact hypothesis states that regular interaction between members of different groups reduces prejudice, providing that it occurs under favorable conditions. On the USA team, players from either side of two heated rivalries bonded. Over the first month of the major league season, a reduction in the negative feelings between certain members of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox is obvious. Likewise, David Wright of the New York Mets put MLB rivalries aside when playing alongside Philadelphia Phillies Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley in the WBC. Although the Mets and Phillies haven’t played each other yet this season, when they do I’m sure David Wright and Jimmy Rollins will be striking up a conversation and sharing a laugh at third base, similar to the interactions witnessed last weekend between Kevin Youkilis and Derek Jeter of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, respectively.
Professional baseball rivals obviously don’t harbor the harshest of prejudices against each other but the contact hypothesis is still applicable, there are genuine negative feelings toward other players based solely on the uniform they wear. Under the favorable conditions of the WBC, regular interaction between former rivals helped to reduce prejudice.

Similarity Attracts

Matt Cassell former Patriots QB with wife or sister?

The 21st century has seen the internetization (that’s right I just made that up) of many things that were previously only face-to-face affairs. Online poker has become wildly popular, for example. People don’t make mix CD’s for their crushes anymore, peer to peer file sharing through the internet has made sharing music with your friends amazingly easy. Dating has come to the world wide web, and there are a litany of companies offering to provide match services. One company in particular, eHarmony, claims to rely on the science of compatibility to make its matches. EHarmony operates on the theory that partners need to share certain key characteristics to better their chances of a successful long-term relationship.
In a recent interview with Ellen McCarthy of the Washington Post, one of eHarmony’s psychologists Gian Gonzaga talked about his experience in eHarmony’s think tank, studying the science of compatibility. When asked why it is important for two people to share important traits Gonzaga answered, “Because if you are similar to someone, it's a lot easier to understand what it is they're thinking. ... They like to believe that what they think is true, and one of the ways that we do that is to look to other people who have the same interests and beliefs and values. So when we see that in a partner, we feel validated in our sense of self, which makes us feel better and makes us like that person.” So eHarmony matches two people based on compatible character traits but how is the next step taken? If we asked some of eHarmony’s successful couples, what made you choose your spouse from a list of compatible partners based only on a picture, the answer (whether they know the term of not) would be the matching hypothesis.
The matching hypothesis claims that people are more likely to form long-standing relationships with those who are equally as physically attractive as they are (Murstein 1970). People are more likely to initiate relationships with people of equal attractiveness because we expect that people that are similar to us will also like us. I mean let's face it I'm not going to ask Heidi Klum out on a date and expect to get a positive response. She is married to Seal...SEAL! That man is a dreamboat. Once eHarmony provides a client with a list of compatible partners, the matching hypothesis claims that the client is more likely to choose to pursue a romantic relationship with possible matches that are equally attractive. Once that match is made that relationship, according to Murstein, is more likely to succeed than a relationship between two people of differing attractiveness.

Answer: That is Matt Cassell's Wife in the picture above

Link to the Interview with Dr. Gonzaga
http://www.thecabin.net/stories/042609/sty_0426090046.shtml

It's Just Tan Stewie Being Tan Stewie

As nice weather finally finds Boston College, the sight of students sprawled out across any sunny patch of grass they can find becomes much more familiar. Some men sunbathe shirtless while many female students wear bikinis. This sun worshiping ritual of the scantily clad provides them with an additional benefit besides the warm, euphoria inducing sensation of the sun’s rays dancing upon skin that has finally emerged from a long, sunless winter of concealment. That benefit: a tan.
Why do people risk damage to their skin from the sun’s dangerous rays or from a confining UV tanning booth? Because society tells them that tan means beautiful. According to the impression management theory (Leary et al., 1997) people often engage in risky behaviors in the name of impression management, or self-presentation. Tanning is a great example of this because more dangerous methods of getting a tan are becoming more common and acceptable. Tanning salons are more popular than ever and more and more young people (sorry girls, most tanning clients are female) are using them. Tanning salon members have to sign a disclaimer when they first use the facility, some parents even sign for their underage daughters. Tanning pills which are illegal for sale in the U.S. can support the body’s production of melanin or manipulate pigment. Both types of tanning pills are extremely dangerous and outlawed by the FDA.
Despite the clear dangers of this kind of behavior, men and women across the U.S. continue to harm their bodies in the name of self-presentation. With images of beautiful bronzed bodies sporting year-round tans all over TV, in magazines and on billboards, young people are constantly reminded of the benefits of a tan self-presentation and so they continue to engage in risky behavior. The dilemma of tanning is a prime example of the power of impression management. Despite known consequences, the benefits of beauty and self-presentation have a powerful allure that promotes risky behavior among those seeking beauty and social acceptance.
Below is the URL for a 2005 article from an online female health magazine that chronicles the different dangers and methods of tanning:

http://www.aphroditewomenshealth.com/news/tanning_safely.shtml

The Necessity of Stereotyping

I’m all about keeping this blog fresh and new but Susan Boyle is just everywhere. The New York Times ran another article featuring Boyle in its Sunday edition. In “Yes, Looks Do Matter” Pam Belluck asserts that while people have been using Susan’s story as an example of how shallow we have become, stereotypes are necessary. Social Psychologists say snap judgments about people are crucial to how we function, even when those judgments are wrong. NYU psychology professor David Amodio says judging things by appearance means quickly determining whether this four legged creature we are looking at is a cat or a dog. “If we look at a chair, we can categorize it quickly even though there are many different kinds of chairs out there”, Amodio added. Susan Fiske, a psychology professor at Princeton says that stereotyping was of life-and-death importance ages ago, when snap judgments intitially determined if a person appeared to have malignant or benign intent. Thus stereotyping in order to avoid angry, dominant looking people was a matter of survival.
So maybe stereotyping is a necessary evil? If we couldn’t judge people’s appearances initially, we would be vulnerable to deception from the first moment of meeting someone. Plus, sometimes stereotyping serves to give people the benefit of the doubt, although most of the time the people receiving this benefit are already fortunate, privileged, and beautiful. The “what-is-beautiful-is-good” stereotype causes attractive people to be judged to be smart, happy, well-adjusted, socially skilled, confident and assertive. On American Idol attractiveness plays a huge role in the voting process; sometimes superior singers are eliminated before a more attractive, popular contestant. People look at Angelina Jolie and say, “She must be a good mom.” Why? Because she has adopted a gazillion kids? For all we know she may have an army of nannies that do all the parenting while Jolie spends a quarter of her life on the red carpet. Through stereotyping, people translate her attractiveness into other positive qualities. Basically, stereotyping is bad. It allows us to sell talented people short and to give already fortunate people credit for talents they may not have. Nonetheless, stereotyping is a necessary function of human nature and while we may all bow our heads in shame at how we shallowly misjudged Susan Boyle, soon the shame will subside and stereotyping will carry on.


Links:
NYT article:

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It's a...It's a Tea Partaay

One piece of recent news that was particularly appalling to me personally was the story of “tea parties” popping up all across the U.S. on April 15th, affectionately referred to by most as tax day. These gatherings are modeled after the famed Boston Tea Party of 1773 during which Massachusetts colonials rebelled against oppressive British taxes by hurling crates of tea off of a British ship and into Boston harbor. Modern demonstrators also feel overtaxed and although they are stopping short of destroying British imports, they are making an impact and garnering a lot of media attention for their opposition of higher taxes and the expansion of government. My only question is have any of the attendees actually had their taxes raised, tax cuts for the wealthy are still in effect, but that is neither here nor there and so I digress, this is a social psychology blog after all…
Social Psychologists define attitudes as global evaluations toward some object or issue (e.g. you like or dislike something, you are in favor of or opposed to some position) (Eagly and Chaiken, 1998). Two functions of attitudes are the value-expressive function and the ego defensive function. With the value-expressive function, attitudes allow us to express cherished beliefs, usually in groups, in which our sense of belonging is increased. With the ego-defensive function, attitudes enable us to maintain cherished beliefs thereby protecting us from information that threatens our worldview.
The attitudes held by tea party attendees, disliking big government for example, serve both the value-expressive and the ego-defensive functions. Through the tea parties, fiscal conservatives express their cherished beliefs and bond over them. Everybody belongs and is one big happy (delusional…sorry there is goes again) family. With this sense of belonging, the beliefs and attitudes are reinforced and entrenched among the attendees. Thus, in turn, as the attitudes and beliefs are reinforced among the group they are protected from competing worldviews because they can continue to dismiss them as inferior as support for their own worldview grows and likeminded people are physically present and echoing the same sentiments. The tax day tea parties are a great example of the functions of attitudes.

Stereotyping links

Not quite sure why these links didn't show so I will just copy and paste the URLs

NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/arts/television/18boyle.html

Susan Boyle YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Paul Potts YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

Stereotyping: Susan Boyle and Paul Potts

A recent New York Times article told the story (for about the millionth time in the past two weeks) of Susan Boyle, a middle-aged Church volunteer from Blackburn, Scotland that has become an internet sensation after her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” on the UK television show Britain’s Got Talent. Boyle has been portrayed as the unlikely heroine that confounded several stereotypes held by the live and television audiences as well as the competition's judges. When she stepped on the stage and told the audience she was 47, raucous laughter erupted. When she said she wanted to have a career like Elaine Page, the same response. Everyone in the studio stereotyped Susan as an unmarried, unemployed, unappealing middle-aged woman who couldn’t possibly be talented enough to succeed in the competition…until she opened her mouth. The show’s host commented, “Bet you didn’t expect that did you.” One of the show’s judges Amanda Holden added after Susan finished, “I am so thrilled [be]cause I know that everybody was against you, I honestly think that we were all being very cynical and I mean that’s the biggest wake-up call ever.” Simon Cowell joked that he knew the minute she walked out on stage exactly what they were in for.
Social Psychologists define a stereotype as a cognition about the personal attributes of a group of people. A stereotype is different from prejudice because stereotypes are not always negative. Discrimination is also different because it involves negative action directed against a person because of his/her membership in a particular group. In Susan’s case, the audience’s laughter is a form of discrimination based on her physical appearance. The audience stereotyped her as a foolish and talentless and wow, were they wrong.
The stereotyping of Susan Boyle is not the first case in the history of Britain’s Got Talent. Season One’s eventual winner, Paul Potts, was stereotyped when he first walked on the BGT stage. When he said, “I’m here to sing opera” audience members exchanged skeptical glances, Simon Cowell sighed deeply. Once Paul began to sing worried looks were replaced by whistles, applause and the occasional tear; Simon’s sigh replaced by a big smile and a big lump in his colleague Amanda Holden’s throat. Again, just like after Susan performed the judges admitted they didn’t see that coming. Amanda called Potts a little lump of coal that is going to turn into a diamond, acknowledging the fact that the crowd and judges probably stereotyped Potts as just that, a little lump of talentless coal. Big props to Britain’s Got Talent for busting a couple of stereotypes on national television and globally on sites like youtube.

Links:
NYT article:


Susan Boyle Youtube:


Paul Potts Youtube:

Persuasion Techniques on TV

Hey all, I decided to use this post to analyze some of my favorite recent infomercials…that’s right…prepare for hilarity. Infomercials utilize some of the same persuasion tactics that companies use in their marketing campaigns and charitable organizations use in fundraising efforts. For this post I will examine two of the most common persuasion techniques, the “That’s Not All” technique and the “Legitimizing Small Favors” technique (Cialdini & Schroeder 1976).
First, let us discuss the “That’s Not All” technique. This is an infomercial favorite. Exhibit A: The Shamwow. America’s favorite German-born chamois/towel (probably the only German born chamois/towel actually) is featured in one of television’s most-played infomercials right now. In the infomercial the pitch man boasts that this cloth can absorb liquid better than anything on the market and that at 4 shamwows for $19.99, this product is a steal (“you’re going to spend $20/month on paper towels anyway” he says, “so call now we can’t do this all day.”) But wait, “That’s not all!” Shamwow offers an additional four cloths for the same price, now that’s 8 shamwows for just $19.99 wow! According to its Social Psychology definition, when using this technique a person begins with a somewhat inflated request ; then immediately decreases the apparent size of the request by offering a discount or bonus. In the case of the ShamWow, the additional 4 cloths are the bonus that reduces the size of the request. Again, this tactic is extremely popular in infomercials (if you call for the knife set now we’ll throw in a turkey baster and a stainless steel GARLIC PUSHER!)
The second technique, “Legitimizing Small Favors”, is more prevalent in charity drives than low-budget infomercials. With this technique, the excuse for not donating (I only have a little and it would be cheap to donate it) is taken away. Robert Cialdini conducted a study in which he collected money for a charity using either the standard request (“Will you donate”) or the standard request plus the claim that “even a penny will help.” The study showed that people were 20% more likely to donate when the claim that “even a penny will help” was added. Charities that support children struggling in impoverished countries use this technique (just a dollar a day could feed a child in South America)as do many pet rescue organizations like the one in Edmonton, Canada (see link below). In this case, the pictures of cute kittens don't hurt either, but the principle persuasion technique is the legitimization of small favors.

Links:
Sham Wow Infomercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns4mnmNBk1Y

Voice for Animals Society
http://edmonton.kijiji.ca/c-pets-dogs-puppies-for-sale-Help-save-an-animals-life-and-donate-even-a-penny-W0QQAdIdZ120520626

Nazi Revisionism and Terror Management Theory

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/22/berga.folo/index.html

Today is the 64^th anniversary of the liberation of American soldiers from Berga an der Elster, a slave labor camp in Germany during World War Two. On this 64^th anniversary, a new photo has surfaced depicting Nazi soldiers digging up mass graves of U.S. soldiers while American GIs who had just liberated the camp look on. As more and more pieces of physical evidence depicting the horrors of the holocaust surface, the case for Holocaust revisionists or denialists is weakened. Many Germans deny that the Holocaust ever happened out of embarrassment. One other explanation for Holocaust denial is the Terror Management Theory (TMT; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon).

The Terror Management Theory states that when images of death (i.e. photos like this one and others from the Holocaust)or any other triggers remind us of death and heighten our mortality salience, people will use different terror management tactics to rid death thoughts from the mind and return to a composed psychological state. Since culture is vital to ward off death anxiety, people should defend their worldviews after mortality salience by either criticizing the world views of others or praising those that share the same worldview.

Terror Management Theory can explain why Holocaust Denialists blamed a Jewish conspiracy for fabricating the story of the holocaust when criticized by the international community following World War II. When reminded of the horrors of the war (both committed and suffered by the Nazis) and in turn their own mortality, Nazi officials clung to their German identity and denounced all criticism of “Father Germany.” Meanwhile, they discredited the Jews, who held an opposing worldview, by suggesting that the Holocaust was a hoax arising out of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy. Immediately following World War II, the recent memories of the war heightened mortality salience and boosted German nationalism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denialism. Terror Management Theory explains that as new evidence, such as this picture, continues to periodically heighten mortality salience among Holocaust revisionists, animosity between competing worldviews will continue to grow.