Emotionally competent stimuli based on evolutionary psychology

Marketers frequently use emotional appeals in their ads to attract the attention of consumers and to effectively persuade them to buy the advertised product. There is, however, no content overview yet of strong emotionally competent stimuli. Previous research has found that people have evolutionary goals that we all (consciously or unconsciously) try to achieve. Images of success in achieving or failure to achieve these goals might work as strong emotionally competent stimuli. Out of a first exploratory study, we revealed six general evolutionary goals: survival, short term mating, long term mating, parental investment, kin investment and social investment. In a second experimental study, we confirmed that pictures that illustrate success in achieving or failure to achieve these goals evoke respectively strong positive or negative primary affective reactions. In addition, differences across gender and life stages are discussed.

Jaar van publicatie:2019

Toegankelijkheid:Closed