Neuroscience of Influence
Ever wonder how ads seem to know exactly what you want?
Or wonder why you keep seeing the same ad over and over?
Turns out, it's all in the game of influence.
In this episode, we dive into the world of neuromarketing, exploring how media and ads constantly influence us and how our brains process these messages to shape our decisions.
Tune in to learn more, and look out for a few more mini-episodes along this topic next month.
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REFERENCES
Introduction to the Journal of Marketing Research, Special Issue on Neuroscience and Marketing -- Colin Camerer and Carolyn Yoon
Persuasion, Influence, and Value: Perspectives from Communication and Social Neuroscience -- Emily Falk and Christin Scholz
What can neuroscience offer marketing research? -- Billy Sung and Nicholas J. Wilson
Neuroscience in Marketing: Assessment of Advertisement; Memory by Means of Facial Muscles; Movement Analysis -- Calga Pinar, Sanem Alkibay
General Outline of Episode
According to Meriam-Webster, the best definition of influence is “ the power to change or affect someone or something”. Humans are impacted by influence all the time. Previously this season we have looked at some of those such as pleasure, and how the human brain makes decisions. But what about deliberate influence, when companies purposefully try to change our behaviors? According to J. G Navarro, in 2023 “the US suppressed half a trillion dollars” in marketing. Needless to say, this is a huge industry where a lot of money is being thrown at influencing us. So
This is the Neuroscience of influence
Neuroscience of Marketing
Sung and Wilson state “Neuromarketing (which is) an applied field of neuroscience, investigates the needs, values, decisions, and emotions of customers in response to marketing actions based on the tools, designs and techniques of neuroscience”.
But why? Falk and Scholz state a lot of what we have been covering this season - there is a lot that impacts humans when we make decisions - how we judge cost versus benefits and what drives behaviors. Because of this, it makes it very hard for humans to actually self-report on what lead to their choices. “Neuroimaging provides a method of simultaneously measuring and quantifying a wide range of possible” options. Specifically, what all can impact that value calculation we all make and thus insight as to what causes our final choices. It can also do this in real-time and without making people try to reflect on what caused them to do something. Also if we remember all the way back to season 1 - we do something and then we make sense of it. This gives a more accurate show to what is going on”. They state the value is that “neural evidence is agnostic to whether or not the processes in question are consciously accessible to the participant” - which helps really get at the fundamental pieces of what motivates us, and how to change those attitudes and behaviors, especially since influences such as persuasion and social influence often occur “automatically, outside of conscious awareness.”
What is the brain’s role?
VMPFC and VS, Memory, Dopamine/Pleasure Centers, and Social connections
VMPFC and VS -
Falk and Scholz state that activity in these areas shows that the brain is integrating a lot of different inputs and trying to make sense of it all. Specifically to get it into “a common value signal” They state that this common value signal helps the brain compare and contrast different choices. “Importantly, this common value signal is not specific to one category of stimuli or choices and scales reliably with how much a person values a wide range of stimuli, including both primary (e.g., food, sex) and secondary (e.g., financial) rewards”
Sung and Wilson state this can help predict choices. Specifically, VS activity has been a predictor of how much that new pop album will sell. Stating that “product preferences and prices can trigger independent patterns of fMRI brain activations and have been found to be good predictors of consumers’ purchasing decisions.
But Falk and Scholz will remind us about the importance of these brain areas in social connection. Specifically that they are involved in tracking if I’m with the crowd or am I against the crowd. “one set of studies points to the involvement of the brain’s value system in tracking divergence versus consensus with group opinion; some evidence suggests that, rather than tracking the value of the stimulus in isolation, the brain initially tracks convergence and divergence with group opinion as an end in itself”. In other words, we are a social species and we are influenced by other humans whether we think we are or not.
And conflict is important. when we are in agreement the VMPFC comes into play. But conflict is harder. Your ventral striatum is really impacted if it feels like it's in disagreement and will increase activity in the brain’s valuation system. “Nonconformity to peer opinions has been associated with increased activity in brain regions implicated in salience, arousal, and conflict monitoring”. In other words - it's hard to go against the grain. And marketers use this all the time.
Falk and Scholz explore that further specifically looking at social learning theory and theories of embodied social cognition. When we feel in sync with someone we are more likely to be able to influence them and vice versa. Because we are so much a social species, our brain struggles more when we don’t conform to group norms - not that you can’t but it is taxed more.
(Bandura study shows we have a desire to conform to group norms which is pretty central and Cialdine and Goldstine will show we want to promote “positive social outcomes and avoid negative social sanctions”.
Berger states that having a shared motivation is influenced by 5 key factors “impression management, emotion regulation, information acquisition, social bonding, and persuasion of others.” Stating that these are not only valuable but impact our ability to have “a positive image of the self and maintain positive social relationships” Which boils down to the fact that we are not logical creatures - much as we would like to believe otherwise. We like to think we decide by facts and logic. But we have so much evidence to show we are “persuaded less by facts and more by subjective value”
And the further the conflict the more taxing on the brain, specifically Falk and Scholz specifically in the posterior medial frontal cortex which activates for conflict detection”
Erk et all looked at cultural objects and how much reward we feel from them - for example cars which then activates the brain around the ideas of feeling wealthy or having social power which increases activity not only in the Ventral striatum but also in the “orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulated and occipital regions” They argued that this activation showed a feeling of higher reward when viewing, for example, a sports car - because its not only a purchase but makes us feel we have social significance - which is going to influence us. Money activates your VS, and so does sexual stimuli.
Dopamine Falk and Scholz also state that dopamine is impacted here specifically in “modulating neurochemicals, such as dopamine, involved in reinforcement learning within the brain’s value system can alter people’s tendency to conform” the more dopamine - the more we want to conform and the more we will agree with others when we might not otherwise
Since we are talking about dopamine - that brings us to pleasure. Good thing we just covered that on this podcast. Touhami, Benlafkih, Jiddaene, Cheetah, Malki, and Benomar really looked at pleasure and the reward centers of the brain because it's at the heart of motivation which drives action and behavior. So we are looking back at that Ventral Tegmental Area, Nucleus Accumben, and Amygdala - because it's driving positive emotions - can we become addicted to brands? They argue we can.
No shocker that memory is a part of all of this specifically Pinar, Bozoklu, and Alkibay explore where this is located - specifically a lot of ads can be found in your long-term memory. How many people still will finish the quote “pop, pop fizz, fizz…..” or “I don’t wanna grow up….” According to Hutchinson and Moore, “an effective ad may create five kinds of nodes in the ad memory. The first one is called as the brand-specific information. This node includes information about the brand arguments, brand attitudes, user characteristics, and persuasive messages. The second one is the ad-specific information. This node generally involves the design structure, appeals, and the strategic contents of the ad. The third and the fourth nodes present respectively the brand identification and the product category. The final one is the evaluative reactions and it includes cognitive and affective responses arisen and stored with the other four nodes.”
Touhami, Benlafkih, Jiddaene, Cheetah, Malki, and Benomar will break this down into two systems for preference. They state that your ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) is one system - that is active when you are trying to make a choice based on sensory information alone. However when you are looking at sensory AND cultural information - the hippocampus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the midbrain come into play. “The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is an area of the brain which is strongly implicated in signaling basic appetitive aspects of reward (McClure et al., 2004).”. Specifically during a blind test, this showed “cerebral preference” But if your culture has a pull towards coke - then different areas are impacted, specifically your “hippocampus, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and midbrain.’ but were not shown to have activation when drinking Pepsi. Dorsal lateral prefrontal impacts cognitive control - remember - brain middle manager - what am I focusing on? However, your “hippocampus interferes in the emotional treatments and in the memory” and causes different retrieval. They argue that “It would be implied in the recollection of episodic autobiographical memories (Viard et al., 2007) and contribute to the retrieval of events - this activation proved that preference can change - becomes a matter of behavior and that is not always in line with what we think its - branding does influence loyalty”.
What can we do about the information we just learned?
A lot of this connects back to the fact that we are social creatures. Our brain makes more sense when we don’t try to pretend otherwise. For example Falk and Scholz state we think of this as a response to persuasion and social influence as things that impact our value-based decision-making - but its important to not only think about the person receiving that information but also the person giving that information. All of this is connected in social interactions - so if I like the person, that might have more meaning to me - so social value and social connection can also influence us - and of course impact different areas of the brain both persuasion and social influence as inputs to value-based decision making in receivers; the actions and recommendations of others provide broader information about the value of ideas, objects, and behaviors to the receiver (i.e., if my friend likes it, it may have value to me), in addition to the social value of conformity and social connection described above
As we know neuroscience provides us with an understanding of how the human brain works - specifically in coding, storing, and retrieving of information or the impact of emotions, as stated by Pinar, Bozoklu, and Alkibay. Neuromarketing is providing business information to us - what drives our behavior and how to change it. In fact, for the first time, the business has insights into not just our conscious but our unconscious minds.
And can really change us - so much so that the Placebo effect can come into play. Just like when we expect a medication to work, it often works - if marketing can sell us on something working - it works - up and including to changing blood pressure, physical reflexes, self-reported arousal level, etc all from really good marking of energy drinks
This leads us to the same question for neuromarketing as for AI. Just because we can, does that mean we should?
Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, U.S. consumer association, has been sounding the alarm about if we should be using brain imaging to seel products. He’s been active in the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, “requesting an investigation of neuromarketing and its implications for politics and public health. According to him, neuro-marketing would constitute a big danger for the consumer” We could be manipulated and not even be aware of it. Ruskin is also alarmed at how much the expansion of neuromarketing could change elections, stating “the future of nations would be compromised.” or how much this could impact our health. Could neuromarketing expand “the growth of some diseases such as obesity, diabetes, alcoholism or lung cancer if junk food, alcohol or tobacco companies would use neuromarketing in their commercial strategies?”
Final Thoughts
For the moment, this is still in its infancy. But it's showing stronger results than the tools that predated it. It's what we’ve been trying to get an understanding of since the 1950s - can I trick your subconscious into changing your behavior? Can I program you if I know how to hack the system?
This leads us to the question - should we be doing this? What are the checks and balances? Where do morals and ethics come into play when money is involved?
At least at the moment, neuromarketing bit expensive, so that helps slow the timeline
