The effectiveness of guilt appeals in social marketing

Résumé du document

The goal of our project is to develop an affective approach to Attitudes and Persuasion. Indeed, we want to understand and explain the role emotions can play in the evolution of people's attitudes towards a topic, a product, a cause, an advertisement, or a company for instance. Of course, rational argumentation might be perceived as superior in terms of achieving persuasive goals. However, we believe that the attitude of a recipient may not change if his or her feelings are not involved. Researches have proved that a persuasive message is more likely to lead to an attitude change if the receiver is emotionally aroused rather than if he or she is exposed to a more rational communication. More particularly, we would like to deal with the concept of guilt in the communication process. Indeed, the effectiveness of fear appeal or the affect-laden appeal has been deeply and thoroughly examined in different studies. On the contrary, the effectiveness of guilt appeal is less known. That is why this research project will help us to learn a bit more about this "marketing tool" which consists arousing consumers' guilt in order to persuade them.

Guilt, in marketing or in any other field, is a complex notion which is always considered as a negative emotion which has an impact on persuasion, and needs to be studied more specifically. Therefore, as a start to our study, it is important to define: what are precisely guilt and its ins and outs? Guilt must be distinguished from fear, annoyance, pity, and remorse. Guilt is more philosophy and psychology "essentially a private recognition that one has violated a personal standard" (Kugler and Jones 1992), in other words "feeling guilty informs us we have failed our own ideals" (Gaylin 1979). Hence, guilt can be described as a "feeling associated with the realization that one has transgressed a moral, societal or ethical principle" (Wolman 1973).Guilt is complex because it combines different feelings such as regret and self-blame that are going to be experienced either by contemplating or actually committing a transgression. Guilt is not only felt after a fault; indeed, it can be experienced when this act has only been thought out and not done. Therefore, guilt always refers to moral principles individuals want to obey. Guilt is specific to a norm imposed by a society and which guides the sense of ethics and attitudes of people.

A definition of guilt for such a project cannot be considered as complete if the three different types of guilt established in 1970 by Rawlings are not mentioned. First of all, guilt can be "anticipatory", which is a guilt that results from an individual while contemplating a potential violation of one's own standard (Rawlings, 1970). Then, guilt can be analyzed as "reactive". It represents here a response to having violated one's standards of acceptable behavior (Rawlings, 1970). Finally, more recent researches have shed light on "existential guilt", which is experienced as a consequence of a discrepancy between one's well-being and the well-being of others.

Extraits

[...] For the one with the very strong guilt appeal, we can explain that by the “avoidance defense mechanism”. Indeed, some people don't want to feel threatened by certain advertising messages. Thus, in order to protect themselves, they prefer to ignore and reject the advertisement which uses a “threatening communication” to force a message of guilt. Those recipients who rejected the ad with the very skinny boy correspond to what is called an “avoider's profile”. - To conclude, we can confirm this hypothesis: A moderately intense guilt appeal generates more felt guilt than more or less intense guilt appeals. [...]

[...] The hungry children example can be rewritten as a statement of action. - Suggestion: a suggestion recommends a future action or behaviour, telling you that there is no excuse for not acting in this way. The anticipation of guilt plays an important role in ethically questionable consumer situations, since enhancing the anticipation of guilt (by making the interpersonal consequences of the unethical act more salient) increase consumers' ethical intentions - Question: a question probes and prods deeper again, asking about your thoughts, feelings, or actions FACTORS OBSTRUCTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GUILT APPEALS Consumers are now considered as active recipients and no longer passive in front of an advertisement or a social change campaign. [...]

[...] Researches have proved that a persuasive message is more likely to lead to an attitude change if the receiver is emotionally aroused rather than if he or she is exposed to a more rational communication. More particularly, we would like to deal with the concept of guilt in the communication process. Indeed, the effectiveness of fear appeal or another affect-laden appeal has been deeply and thoroughly examined in different studies. On the contrary, the effectiveness of guilt appeal is less known. That is why we want this research project to help us learning a bit more about this “marketing tool” which consists in arousing consumers' guilt in order to persuade them. [...]

[...] As we said, we decided to show the recipients advertisements with different level of guilt appeals. Indeed, by manipulating the level of guilt in the different ads presented (high guilt level, low guilt level, or no guilt at all), it was possible for us to test the inverted U-turn relationship supposed in our hypotheses. It was interesting to see to which ad they were ready to give more money However, as we did not want to distort our results, we preferred to present them in a specific order different from the order which would have been to start with the strongest guilt ad and to finish with the one which uses positive emotions appeal We picked 5 ads: - A very strong guilt appeal advertisement (Réunir Niger) - A strong guilt appeal advertisement (Action contre la faim) - An informative advertisement (Médecins sans Frontières) - A neutral advertisement (Collectif Alimenterre) - A positive advertisement (Ensemble contre la faim) Here is the order in which we present the ads to our recipients: After that, they have been asked how much money they were ready to give to help the charity. [...]

[...] Consequently, we collected and presented to our recipients advertisements with different guilt appeal levels. Moreover, we also chose to present some advertisements which use different emotions appeals, such as humor. Thanks to those neutral or positive ads, we were able to compare and to qualify the impact of guilt on the recipient consumer. It was interesting to test the different reactions of the recipients confronted by theses ads. With regards to the sampling frame, for easiness issues, we worked with a convenience sampling. [...]