Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

336 Understanding Emotional Decision Making


to overestimate the frequency of positive events and to underestimate the likelihood of negative


outcomes and events.^300 Thus, they tend to make optimistic judgments and risk-seeking decisions.


For example, audiences who read upbeat newspaper articles subsequently are willing to take more


risks than audiences who read sad articles.^301 However, happy audience members are less likely to


take risks when the stakes are high and the potential for loss is genuine.^302


Audiences put into happy moods also tend to make more positive evaluations of other people

and situations. For example, audiences put into happy moods make signifi cantly more positive than


negative evaluations of strangers, whereas those in bad moods are unlikely to allow their feelings to


infl uence their evaluations.^303 Consumers put into happy moods rate various products, brands, and


ads more positively.^304 In one study, consumers who viewed subliminally presented photos of happy


faces not only drank more, they also paid more for their drinks. Whereas, consumers who viewed


subliminally presented angry faces both drank less and paid less.^305 In a large random-sample inter-


view of the U.S. population, researchers found that interviewees who felt good at the time of their


interview gave more positive responses than interviewees in a bad mood.^306


Audiences put into happy moods generally agree more with persuasive messages than audiences

in other moods,^307 and are much more compliant than those put into angry moods.^308 When an


ad for a product puts consumers in a happy mood, they tend to adopt a positive attitude toward the


advertised brand.^309 When the music and images in a political campaign ad put voters in a happy


mood, voters feel greater certainty about their prior choice of candidates. As a consequence, happy


campaign ads both rally a candidate’s supporters and harden their opposition.^310


In most cases, audiences put into happy moods process persuasive messages without much ratio-

nal thought or deliberation.^311 A study of the effects of readers’ incidental moods fi nds that readers


in a neutral mood are more persuaded by strong arguments than weak ones, as they should be if


their decision-making process were rational. But readers put into happy moods are equally per-


suaded by both strong and weak arguments.^312 Inducing happy moods can even cause audiences


to perceive weak arguments to be more persuasive than strong ones. The use of humor in an ad


produces more positive attitudes among consumers when the ad uses weak arguments, and fewer


positive attitudes when the ad uses strong arguments.^313 Audiences in a happy mood are also more


likely to perceive novel arguments as familiar, which may contribute to their acceptance of them


as true.^314


In special cases, audiences put into happy moods will process persuasive messages in a rational

and deliberate way. For example, audiences put into happy moods are more infl uenced by strong


arguments than sad audiences when both groups believe the message causes happiness.^315 Com-


pared with unhappy audience members, audiences put into happy moods show less confusion,


less redundancy, and are better able to integrate task-relevant information when making deci-


sions.^316 If happy audiences are asked to make a decision that is interesting or important, they


will make the effort to process relevant information rationally and systematically.^317 And as long


as the decisions to be made are interesting or important, audiences put into happy moods also


make good decisions faster.^318 For example, happy consumers make purchasing decisions that


are just as rational as those made by consumers in neutral moods, but they make their decisions


more quickly.^319


The Effects of Incidental Sadness


Audiences put into sad or depressed moods, such as the recently unemployed or viewers watching


distressing events on the evening news, tend to make pessimistic judgments and decisions.^320 Thus,


they tend to overestimate the frequency of sad events and underestimate the likelihood of positive


events.^321 Audiences who are induced to feel sad are also more likely to expect future events to

Free download pdf