New Influences: Nonconscious
Consumer Behavior and
Neuroimaging
MAR 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, 2000
Bargh, 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) Velasquez
Dijksterhuis & Knippenberg, 1998
Automatic behavior: Social stereotypes
# correct on trivia quiz
Dijksterhuis & Knippenberg, 1998
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
Schiffer
professors
Einstein
supermodels
Dijksterhuis et al., 1998
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 leveldependent) 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 selfreflection, introspection,
daydreaming
• MPFC activation is
default activity, may
indicate that selfreferential 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?