Social Consumer Neuroscience: Neurophysiological Measures of Advertising Effectiveness in a Social Context

The application of neurophysiological methods to study the effects of advertising on consumer purchase behavior has seen an enormous growth in recent years. However, little is known about the role social settings have on shaping the human brain during the processing of advertising stimuli. To address this issue, we first review previous key findings of neuroscience research on advertising effectiveness. Next, we discuss traditional advertising research into the effects social context has on the way consumers experience advertising messages and explain why marketers, who aim to predict advertising effectiveness, should place participants in social settings, in addition to the traditional ways of studying consumer brain responses to advertising in social isolation. This article contributes to the literature by offering advertising researchers a series of research agendas on the key indicators of advertising effectiveness (attention, emotion, memory, and preference). It aims to improve understanding of the impact social context has on consumers' neurophysiological responses to advertising messages

Framing a Trust Game as a Power Game Greatly affects Interbrain Synchronicity between Trustor and Trustee

We used dual electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity simultaneously in pairs of trustors and trustees playing a 15-round trust game framed as a \u201ctrust game\u201d versus a \u201cpower game\u201d. Four major findings resulted: first, earnings in each round were higher in the trust than in the power game. Second, in the trust game, reaction time for strategic deliberations was significantly longer for the trustee than the trustor. In the power game, however, the trustee took longer to think about how much money to repay, whereas the trustor took longer to think about how much money to invest. Third, prediction accuracy for the amount exchanged was higher in the trust game than in the power game. Fourth, interbrain synchronicity gauged with the phase-locking value of alpha bands in the brain \u2013 especially the frontal and central regions \u2013 was higher in the power game than in the trust game. We infer that this last finding reflects elevated mutual strategic deliberation in the power game. These behavioral and neuroscience-based findings give a better understanding of the framing effects of a trust game on the strategic deliberations of both trustor and trustee seeking to attain wealth. Copyright \ua9 2018 Informa UK Limite

Merely Being with You Increases my Attention to Luxury Products: Using EEG to understand consumers' Emotional Experience of Luxury Branded Products

Electrophysiological and hemodynamic studies provide substantial evidence of dissimilar brain responses when people view emotional compared with neutral pictures. This study investigates consumer brain responses underpinning passive viewing of luxury (high emotional value) versus basic (low emotional value) branded products when participants are alone or with another person. Conforming to social facilitation theory and using electroencephalogram methods, the authors recorded event-related potentials while female participants passively viewed pictures of luxury and basic branded products. They examined event-related-potential amplitudes in three time windows, corresponding to the P2 and P3 components and the late positive potential (LPP). Dissimilar brain responses occurred in the Together but not the Alone condition for the P2 and P3 components over visual cortex sites. The LPP amplitude was higher for luxury than for basic branded products, but only in the Together condition, suggesting that the presence of another person magnifies the emotional effect of brand type. Taken together, the results suggest that LPP amplitude during passive viewing of relevant marketing images reflects increased attention allocation and motivational significance, both enhanced by the presence of another person, to stimuli with higher emotional valu

Why Some People Just “Can’t Get No Satisfaction”: Secure versus Insecure Attachment Styles Affect One’s “Style of Being in the Social World”

We first seek to explore the relationship between attachment styles of professional financial service customers and their ability to experience customer satisfaction and build relationships with a commercial bank. Secure attached people identify with the commercial bank, feel satisfied and are loyal with the commercial bank. Second, we question whether attachment styles and degrees of satisfaction are also reflected in a capacity to feel pleasure in attachments to luxury products, feel happiness and pro-activeness, develop positive relationships with others, and sleep well for multiple samples of non-commercial customers. Apparently, secure attached people form enjoyable attachments with luxury goods/brands. Equally, in life in general they show a proactive attitude and generosity toward others, and feel low envy. Anxious attachment style relates negatively with appraisal of and relationship formation with commercial banks, negatively with enjoyment and attachment to luxury goods, and negatively with generosity towards people and happiness. In addition, anxious attachment style relates positively with envy towards people and low sleep quality. Avoidant attachment style does not relate with any of the above variables except for a negative association with happiness with life in general. Finally, none of the attachment styles scales relates with the BIS-BAS scale, except that anxious attachment relates with the BIS scale, indicating largely that the attachment system does not function as an approach-avoidance system but helps in homeostatic regulation of stress due to the experience of quiescence with others. By studying how attachment styles affect people in commercial and general social domains we hope to pave the way for further exploration of the fundamental mechanisms that drive secure attached people as opposed to insecure attached people to generally experience positive emotions and outcomes in life. We tentatively suggest that compared to insecure attached people, secure attached people possess a different “style of being in the social world.