Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

332 Understanding Emotional Decision Making

Believability as an Emotional Intensifi er

Only when audiences believe an event is real can the event elicit their emotions.^233 Unreal events

can elicit emotions only if “the stimulating fantasy succeeds in inducing a sense of reality in

the reader or viewer.”^234 In an empirical test of this concept, a research team manipulated the

believability of three emotional ads. The audience’s emotional responses to all three ads showed

signifi cant differences due to the believability manipulation.^235

In another test of the effects of believability, viewers watched a gruesome anthropological fi lm

that showed a “subincision” procedure adolescent boys in New Guinea must undergo. One group

of viewers watched a silent fi lm version of the excruciatingly painful procedure. A second group

fi rst received a written statement that said the procedure was actually painless before they watched

the same silent version of the fi lm. A third group watched the same fi lm with a soundtrack added

and heard a narrator claim the procedure was painless. The second and third groups responded with

less emotion, as measured by changes in their electrodermal activity, than the fi rst group, an indica-

tion that reducing the believability of a fi lm reduces its emotional impact.^236

Brain Regions Activated. In an fMRI study of believability effects, audience members looked at

two sets of pictures that depicted needles going through the skin of a person’s hand. For the second

set, the audience was told the “hand had already been numbed for a biopsy.” The bottom-up visual

inputs from both sets of images activated pain regions in the brain: the dorsal, or upper, anterior

cingulate cortex (ACC), the upper portion of the insular cortex, a brain region located beneath

the juncture of the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes, as well as a region near the front of the

parietal lobe (see Figures 3.4 and 3.5 , p. 108). But the top-down cognitive appraisal that the hand

was actually numb in the second set of pictures activated regions involved in inferring another’s

thoughts and feelings (the medial prefrontal cortex, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the ventro-

medial prefrontal cortex [vmPFC], and the precuneus) as well as a region involved in self-control

(the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex). These regions typically play a role in contextualizing

empathic responses to others.^237

Temporal and Physical Proximity as Emotional Intensifi ers

As an emotionally signifi cant event draws nearer in time, the emotions the event evokes, such as

fear or happiness, tend to intensify even when the audience’s evaluations of the event’s probabil-

ity or likely outcomes stay the same.^238 For example, when researchers told subjects they would

receive an electric shock at a specifi c time, they found that the subjects’ levels of fear as measured

by their heart rates, galvanic skin conductance, and reports of anxiety all increased as the moment

approached.^239

In another study of the effects of temporal proximity, 49 students were offered one dollar each

to tell a joke in front of the class the next week. Only nine students accepted the offer. When the

next week came, all 49 students were given a chance to change their minds. Six of the nine students

who had previously accepted the offer to tell a joke decided not to do so. None of the students who

had initially declined the offer decided to tell a joke at the last minute.^240

Physical proximity can have an effect on emotions similar to the effect of temporal proximity.

Physical proximity and sensory contact can lead to impulsive behavior, behavior that grocery store

checkout lanes are ready to take advantage of.^241

Emotional Contagion

The emotions of speakers who are nonverbally expressive typically spread spontaneously

throughout the audience—a phenomenon known as emotional contagion.^242 Emotional contagion