UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN

Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising

An Application of Evolutionary Psychology for an Improved Understanding of Advertising Effectiveness

Master of Science Thesis Merijn de Ruijter van Steveninck December 2010

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 2 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

State University Groningen Faculty of Business & Economics Master of Science Business Administration, Marketing Management

Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising

An Application of Evolutionary Psychology for an Improved Understanding of Advertising Effectiveness

Master of Science Thesis Merijn de Ruijter van Steveninck December 2010

Supervisors: Karel-Jan Alsem ([email protected]) Debra Trampe ([email protected])

Address Author: Acacialaan 24b 3941JR Doorn +31 616402813 [email protected]

Student number: s1752553

Source reference cover: www.anotherpanacea.com

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 3 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 4 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Management Summary

Intro

There are different opinions of the rationale behind advertising. Advertising could be defined as either a mirror of human nature or as socialization force, which shapes human behaviour (i.e. nature versus nurture). The implications for determining advertising effectiveness are contradicting in both views. Evolutionary psychology and the social sciences are the two opposing research streams. In case of evolutionary psychology, unconscious needs or drives are the basis. Evolutionary psychologists state that the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors (Tooby and Cosmides, 1997). On the other hand, social scientists argue that the contents of human minds are primarily free social constructions, and are autonomous and disconnected from any evolutionary or psychological foundation (Tooby and Cosmides, 1997). In this thesis the contradicting views are analyzed in order to get a better understanding of advertising effectiveness. In case of evolutionary psychology, advertising effectiveness will be enhanced if the evolved human nature is taken into account in the development of advertisements. Furthermore, the social sciences state that it is unethical and scientifically unsound to apply an evolutionary psychology perspective. In this thesis it is argued that the evolutionary psychology viewpoint, in contradiction to the social sciences, provides a unifying framework in determining consumer behaviour. Therefore, advertising practitioners could improve advertising effectiveness while applying evolutionary psychology. Furthermore, this thesis arguments why it is not unethical and in fact appropriate to take advantage of the lessons which could be learned from evolutionary psychology.

Literature Study

The evolutionary minded studies suggest that consumption-relevant processes such as product search, product evaluation, and decision-making are likely to differ qualitatively depending on which adaptive mental system – that is – which evolutionary domain – is being engaged (Griskevicius et al., 2009). Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009) were the first in showing empirically the value evolutionary psychology could have for marketing. They presented the joint interaction of active motives (i.e. romantic versus neutral), costly signals (i.e. conspicuous consumption versus blatant benevolence) and gender. These studies are from an evolutionary psychology perspective relevant because of the relation between

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 5 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de different motives and the expected behaviour of humans. The aim of this thesis is to extend these models to an advertising context, thus to improve the effectiveness of advertising.

Conceptual Model and Research Design

The research question constructed for this thesis is as follows: what is the impact of the joint interplay of costly signals, active motives and gender on advertising effectiveness? Costly signals are operated by advertisements based on conspicuous consumption or blatant benevolence appeals. They were created for four products (Hummer, Giro 555, a purebred dog and an MBA). Advertising effectiveness was assessed by measures of brand loyalty (attitude and behaviour). Furthermore, this study accounted for previous build product associations which could influence the results. It was checked whether people’s status (i.e. equivalent of conspicuous consumption) or pro-social (i.e. equivalent of blatant benevolence) associations influenced the results. See table 1 at the end of the summary for an outline of the main study. In accordance to predictions by evolutionary psychologists, and specifically the studies of Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009), the hypotheses generated in this study are depicted below.

Hypothesis 1: Costly Signalling There is a three way interaction between costly signalling appeals (i.e. conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence), active motives (i.e. romantic motives and neutral motives) and gender for the measures of advertising effectiveness (i.e. attitude and behaviour). Specifically, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for conspicuous consumption appeals if one is man. Controversially, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for blatant benevolence appeals if one is woman. Furthermore, neutral motives are not related to the measures of advertising effectiveness.

Hypothesis 2: Status and Pro-Social Associated Products There is a three way interaction between product associations (i.e. status and pro-social), active motives (i.e. romantic motives and neutral motives) and gender for the measures of advertising effectiveness (i.e. attitude and behaviour). Specifically, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for status associated products if one is man. Controversially, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for pro-social related products if one is woman. Furthermore, neutral motives are not related to the measures of advertising effectiveness.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 6 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Hypothesis 3: Status and Pro-Social Associated Products, Strengthened by Costly Signalling Appeals There is a three way interaction between product associations strengthened by costly signalling appeals (i.e. status/conspicuous consumption and pro-social/blatant benevolence), active motives (i.e. romantic motives and neutral motives) and gender for the measures of advertising effectiveness (i.e. attitude and behaviour). Specifically, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for status associated products strengthened by conspicuous consumption appeals if one is man. Controversially, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for pro-social related products strengthened by blatant benevolence appeals if one is woman. Furthermore, neutral motives are not related to the measures of advertising effectiveness.

The design of the experiment was a two (participant sex) by two (active motive: mating versus neutral) by two (costly signalling appeals: conspicuous consumption versus blatant benevolence) repeated measures design. Sex and mental state were between-participants factors, whereas costly signalling appeals were within-participants factors.

Results and Discussion

For the behaviour component of advertising effectiveness the predicted three way interaction was found in case of hypothesis I. Although, it has to be noticed that the interaction effect was significant at a 90 percent confidence level, therefore the results have to be interpreted with some caution. Specifically, the results showed that men with romantic motives scored higher on the behaviour measure when persuaded with conspicuous consumption appeals than blatant benevolence appeals. For women, the opposite was true. Furthermore, participants in the neutral active motive showed a similar behavioural pattern. For the attitude component of advertising effectiveness, no three way interaction effect was found. However, also for attitude a main interaction was found between costly signalling appeals and sex. In specific, men scored in both active motives higher for attitude when persuaded by conspicuous consumption appeals. For women there was no significant interaction. Hypotheses II and III were not supported, therefore previous build product associations did not have main effects.

The difference found between the attitude and behaviour measures is striking. In this study, the interaction was only significant for the behaviour measure. The origin of this variation is not clear and

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 7 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de the literature is not clear about it. Although Curlo (1992) suggest that people may prefer and choose brands even though they dislike their advertisements, i.e., ad disliking does not necessarily lead to brand rejection and vice versa.

Implications

The implications for advertising practitioners are apparent. First, practitioners could anticipate on the activation of different motives before displaying advertisements. Web advertisements are most suitable in this case, for the reason that it is a portal of mood enhancing films and television programmes. Advertisements could be placed during or after films and television programmes. Second, practitioners could manipulate the costly signalling appeals in order to effectively reach men and women. Moreover, costly signalling appeals could be manipulated for the same product in order to reach different target groups. Taking all these interactions into account, advertising effectiveness will increase. The theoretical implications of this study are as follows. In the discussed debate between evolutionary psychologists and social scientists this study supports some hypotheses originating from evolutionary psychology. The interaction found between men and costly signalling appeals could be explained by evolutionary psychologists via the innate preference for impressing others with their access to resources (Saad, 2007).

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 8 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Table 1: Outline MSc Thesis “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising”

Purpose Stimulus Measures Results/Conclusions

To examine Costly signalling Attitude toward the The results indicate the appeals product a three way interactions interaction between between costly Four product Three 9-point scales: costly signalling signalling (i.e. advertisements for  bad-good appeals, active conspicuous each category.  unfavourable- motives and gender consumption favourable in advertising and blatant Advertised products:  negative-positive effectiveness in case benevolence),  Hummer of behavioural active motives  Giro 555 Behavioural intentions intentions. (i.e. romantic  Purebred motives) and dog Three 9-point scales: sex in  MBA  The extent to determining which advertising Active motive participants were effectiveness. interested in Romantic priming via finding out more imagination and about the description of a products. romantic date.  How likely participants were to consider purchasing them.  How likely participants were to actually purchase them.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 9 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 10 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Contents

Management Summary ...... 5 Preface ...... 13 Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 15

1.1 Nature versus Nurture as Marketing Antithesis ...... 15 1.2 Research Questions ...... 18 1.2 Managerial and Theoretical Value ...... 18 1.4 Thesis Outline ...... 19

Chapter 2 Literature Review ...... 20

2.1 Perspectives on Advertising...... 20

2.1.1 Advertising Defined ...... 20 2.1.2 Passive Individuals and Evolutionary Psychology...... 22 2.1.3 Active Social/Cultural Groups and the Social Sciences ...... 25 2.1.4 Evolutionary Psychology versus the Social Sciences ...... 28 2.1.5 Applications of Evolutionary Psychology for Advertising ...... 30 2.2 Interaction between Costly Signals, Active Motives and Gender in Determining Advertising Effectiveness ...... 32

2.2.1 Costly Signalling as Strategic and Sex-specific Self-presentations ...... 32 2.2.2 Resources and Conspicuous Consumption ...... 34 2.2.3 Pro-social Orientation and Blatant Benevolence ...... 35 2.2.4 Costly Signalling in the Mating Context ...... 35 2.2.5 Basic Persuasion Heuristics ...... 37 2.2.6 Joint Interplay Costly Signalling, Active Motives and Gender in the Evaluation of Advertisements ...... 38 2.2.7 Measures of advertising effectiveness ...... 39 2.2.8 The Suspected Position of the Social Sciences in this Debate ...... 40 Chapter 3 Conceptual Model ...... 41

3.1 Hypotheses ...... 41 3.2 Independent Variables ...... 43 3.3 Moderators ...... 45

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 11 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

3.4 Dependent Variables ...... 46

Chapter 4 Research Design ...... 47

4.1 Pilot Study ...... 47 4.2 Main Study ...... 49

Chapter 5 Results ...... 53

5.1 Analysis Techniques ...... 53 5.2 Overview of Results...... 53

5.2.1 Main Study: Costly Signals ...... 53 5.2.2 Conspicuous Consumption and Blatant Benevolence ...... 54 5.2.3 Alternative Study: Product Associations and Costly Signals ...... 58 5.2.4 Status and Pro-Social ...... 60 Chapter 6 Discussion ...... 65

6.1 Summary of Findings ...... 65 6.2 Implications ...... 68 6.3 Limitations ...... 70 6.4 Future Research ...... 71

References ...... 72 Appendix I ...... 79 Appendix II ...... 83 Appendix III ...... 84

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 12 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Preface

Finding an interesting topic for my thesis was not very complicated. It was quite harder to transform an interesting topic into a sound model. I am always interested in the hidden justifications of human behaviour. Therefore, studying marketing is very interesting because consumer behaviour displays all kinds of human behaviour one could imagine.

In my quest to find a research topic for this thesis, my attention came to applications of evolutionary psychology for marketing practices. While reading about evolutionary psychology I became more and more fascinated by its theories. Even more fascinating was the debate between evolutionary psychologists and its offenders. Specifically, the debate about the origin of sex roles was sometimes hilarious. What to think of this recent quote from Gad Saad on his weblog regarding a publication about congenitally blind men preferring the female hourglass figure: “Well, in today’s post, I discuss a new study that yet again kills the apparently immortal socialization dragon!” Realize that Saad is a professor and prominent propagandist of evolutionary psychology. On the other hand, social scientists, are not free as well from vague and ungrounded insinuations, as becomes clear from a quote of Begley (2009) in a Newsweek article: “Let’s not speculate on the motives that (mostly male) evolutionary psychologists might have in asserting that their wives are programmed to not really care if they sleep around.” Begley is science columnist for the Wall Street Journal and was senior science writer for Newsweek. Unfortunately, the debate is actually more like a political campaign then a fair scientific debate. My observation of this debate is that, in this case, social scientists are fighting a background battle. Driven by ideological reasons, and an obsession for political correctness, they wish to change human behaviour. However, they do not realize that life itself is not political correct (whatever that means). The aim of my thesis was to make these topics relevant for marketing and I believe that I succeeded.

Lastly, before turning to the thesis, I have to thank some people. Especially, Karel-Jan Alsem and Debra Trampe as my supervisors. Karel-Jan for his drive to translate theory into practice and open mind to my sometimes inarticulated research proposals. Furthermore, thanks to Debra for her expertise in consumer psychology. Last but not least, many thanks to everyone who supported me during this project!

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 13 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 14 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Chapter 1 Introduction

“Marketing is designing, producing, advertising, delivering, pricing, and selling products that satisfy consumer preferences: the economic analogy of sexual selection through mate choice.” Geoffrey Miller in The Mating Mind (2000)

1.1 Nature versus Nurture as Marketing Antithesis

The nature versus nurture discussion is a controversial psychological debate. According to an encyclopaedia, the nature versus nurture colloquialism refers to popular debates about the degrees to which one’s innate nature and human experiences (“nurture”) have a direct or causal influence upon one’s ultimate physical and behavioural traits (WordiQ). Today, more and more scientists are inspired by this debate and are trying to relate it to marketing practices. Broadly spoken, there are two apparently contradicting research streams according to the nature versus nurture discussion, the evolutionary psychologist’s perspective and the social scientists perspective. This thesis links theories of evolutionary psychology to advertising effectiveness.

The contrast between evolutionary psychology and the social sciences is made clear by Saad (2007). The evolutionary psychology perspective is that advertising and media effects have to be seen as mirrors of human nature. For the social sciences, the same effects have to be seen as socialization forces that shape us into the people we are. This contrast is clearly illustrated by the example of what makes masculinity and femininity. The thesis of social scientists is that our interpretations about masculinity and femininity are the result of a socialization process that starts when people are born. Specifically, boys get miniature trucks from their parents to play with and girls the dolls. The antithesis of evolutionary psychologists is that it is no coincidence that boys get the trucks and girls the dolls. Even without the steering behaviour of parents, boys and girls will – in general – pick respectively the truck and the doll. Why? They argue that the evolved innate nature of boys makes that they are more willing to take risks and that women care more about others. Issues like this are relevant for all professionals involved in advertising practices. How to turn a potential customer to the advertised product? In the case of the evolutionary psychologists, marketers have to take into account the evolved preferences of men and women. For example, peoples’ excessive preference for sweet and salty food is a heritage of

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 15 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de our ancestors, who lived in environments where they had limited access to such vital resources (Colarelli and Dettmann, 2003). On the other hand, according to social scientists, advertisers and media professionals dictate the preferences of people. For example, men are more in favour of slender women because of the advertising standards, is their explanation (Saad, 2007). The proposition of this study is that the perspective of evolutionary psychologists, in comparison with the social scientists, is more reliable. According to Saad and Gill (2000), the broad and all-encompassing theoretical propositions of evolutionary psychology and its growing acceptance in various disciplines, is expected to be viable in the field of marketing.

Evolutionary psychology is not mainstream and relatively new in the field of marketing. The struggles of evolutionary psychologists in marketing can be illustrated by using the following example. In the year 2000, Saad and Gill introduced some applications of evolutionary psychology in marketing and ten years later, Saad – professor and ‘apostle’ of evolutionary thinking in marketing - wrote a paper with the title: “The collective amnesia of marketing scholars regarding consumers’ biological and evolutionary roots”. Furthermore, during a symposium in 2008 named: “Homo consumicus: emerging research in evolutionary consumer behaviour” the status of evolutionary psychology in marketing was discussed. It was stated that evolutionary approaches to study human behaviour have led to broad theoretical advancements in the field of biology, economics, anthropology, and psychology. Yet empirical research utilizing evolutionary models in marketing discipline’s top journals has thus far been mostly absent. Moreover, there is some significant resistance from in particular the feminist movement over the years. Illustrated by the social scientist Begley (2009): “Evolutionary psychology is popular for obvious reasons, it addresses these very sexy topics, it is all about sex and violence, and has an obsession with Pleistocene just-so stories”. This combination of a lack of a significant amount of highly rated publications and ideological resistance could possibly explain the stagnating progress of practical evolutionary psychological scientific research in the marketing discipline.

However, the viewpoint of Colarelli and Dettmann (2003) seems to be a serious starting point in determining the practicability of evolutionary psychology for marketing. They stated that most advertisers probably did not consciously engineer advertisements based on evolutionary principles; rather, advertising appeals emerged from an interaction of psychological mechanisms, ecological conditions, cultural factors and consequences. They further stated that advertisements that appeal to an evolved preference were more likely to produce impacts and should be adopted. For example, an

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 16 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de advertisement directed to young males that features young and attractive females is likely to get their attention and to develop into a positive emotion toward the product. Consumer products and advertisements are likely to tap into evolved psychological mechanisms when they provide information similar to that provided in contexts that gave rise to the evolution of a particular psychological mechanism (Colarelli and Dettmann, 2003).

Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009) were the first in making significant contributions in linking evolutionary psychology theories regarding consumer behaviour and advertising practices. Firstly, they showed that romantic motives elicit different strategic costly signals in men and women. Specifically, women are in this case more willing for blatant benevolence (e.g. spent more money/time on charities and volunteering work) and men are more willing to conspicuously consume (e.g. spent more money on luxuries). In both ways, people want to “stand out from the crowd” when having romantic motives. Overall, romantic motives seem to produce highly strategic and sex-specific self-presentations best understood within a costly signalling framework according to this study. According to Griskevicius et al. (2007), costly signalling is the theory that a variety of conspicuous displays (e.g. displaying resources such as an expensive watch or showing your social engagement by supporting charities) can serve important communicative functions, advertising an individual’s ability to garner scarce resources and possibly signalling the possession of desirable traits that could be passed on to offspring (i.e. advertising your personal competitive advantages in order to attract potential mates). Secondly, in another study they investigated how arousal-inducing contexts, such as romantic television programs influence the effectiveness of basic persuasion heuristics. This study supported the “stand out from the crowd” notion in a romantically loaded context. The results supported again predictions from an evolutionary model. Showing that romantic desire can lead scarcity appeals (e.g. companies purposeful market “limited edition” products that are perceived to be more distinct and less available) persuasive. Moreover, romantic desire can lead social proof appeals (e.g. a product is a top-seller or is particularly popular) to be counter-persuasive. For the advertising industry this could have direct implications. If one is aware of the different motivations of men and women in a particularly evolutionary domain, in this case the reproductive module, one could create advertisements based on this knowledge. However, these studies were not purely marketing focused, for the reason that they did not translate the findings to real marketing practices. In absence of such marketing cases, the aim of this study is to build consciously to an advertising case based on evolutionary principles.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 17 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

1.2 Research Questions

This study combined the two described studies of Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009) and tested it with real products. As described, men are more willing to conspicuously consume in a romantic context in contrast to a neutral context and women are in the same context more open for blatant benevolence. The question arises if those mechanisms function as well when translating them to the evaluation by men and women of advertisements. That is, to what extent is there a joint interaction between costly signals (i.e. conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence), active motives (i.e. romantic) and gender in the context of advertising effectiveness?

1.2 Managerial and Theoretical Value

Firstly, advertising managers have to make a decision about whether to target men or women for their product advertisements. Realize that advertising managers could differentiate between their advertisements for men and women. Secondly, they have to take into account the active motive of the receiver activated before displaying the advertising (i.e. romantic in this case). Lastly, they have to create their advertising appeals in congruence with the active motive and the target group (i.e. conspicuous consumption appeals in case of men and blatant benevolence appeals in case of women.

Griskevicius et al. (2009) suggested that advertising practitioners might consider the content of the specific television program during which their ads will air. Commercials on television are evident in this case; however in this study print advertisements are tested. Therefore, the managerial implications of this study are most obvious for advertising on the Web. As the Web evolved as a mainstream commercial medium, advertising revenues have increased continuously, reaching $16.9 billion in 2006 (PriceWaterhouseCooper, 2007). Furthermore, many websites have adopted business models in which a considerable fraction of the revenue is generated from advertisements displayed on the Web (Dawanda et al., 2005). Moreover, Yoo (2008) demonstrated the effectiveness of Web ads. He suggested that, upon exposure to Web ads, consumers experience priming by implicit memory and build a more favourable attitude towards the advertised brand regardless of the levels of attention they paid to the advertisements. Furthermore, those who unconsciously processed Web ads did not remember seeing the ad explicitly, but they were more likely to include the advertised brand in the consideration set than those who had no exposure. Amongst other things, the Web is a portal for films and television

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 18 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de programmes and is suitable for print advertisements. More specific, advertising practitioners could programme their print advertisements during or after romantically loaded content. Therefore, if it is true that those mechanisms work as well in creating advertisements, managers could consciously create advertisements based on conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence and they could specifically focus on men or women. Furthermore, there are technologies that identify gender and mood1. Extrapolating from that, is seems to be possible in the future to personalize advertisements in such a way that it interacts with characteristics of the receiver. Therefore, the added value of this study is that it gives advertising and media professionals tools in designing advertisements and decision making in case of targeting specific groups. In the end, this could improve the return on advertising investments. Return on advertising investments will be welcome, especially if one realizes the amount of money annually circulating in the industry, $445 billion globally in 2009 (Plunkett Research, 2010). Thus, the goal of the study is to examine the interactions between costly signalling (i.e. conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence), active motives (i.e. romantic and neutral) and sex in an advertising setting.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the consumer behaviour literature in such a way that it is an extension of the studies of Griskevicius (2007, 2009). In specific, this study is more relevant in determining advertising effectiveness. Furthermore, it responds to the requests of several researchers who believe that evolutionary psychology could contribute to marketing knowledge (e.g. Saad and Gill, 2000; Saad, 2007, 2010).

1.4 Thesis Outline

This thesis contains a literature review, a conceptual model, a research design, results and a discussion respectively. Firstly, the literature review discusses perspectives on advertising, costly signalling as strategic and sex specific self-presentations. Secondly, the conceptual model presents the model build for this thesis. Thirdly, the research design depicted the way in which this study is constructed (i.e. pilot study and main study). Furthermore, the results outline the main findings of this study. Finally, the discussion summarizes the findings, critically discusses the implications and limitations and offers some suggestions for future research.

1 Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Germany have developed a new system for rapid facial analysis. Highly complex algorithms can immediately localize human faces in an image, differentiate between men and women and analyze their expressions (DCViews.com, 2007).

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 19 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Chapter 2 Literature Review

“The tale of Aladdin, from the 1,001 Arabian Nights, offers a serviceable metaphor for consumerism. The poor boy Aladdin discovers a magic lamp and a secret cave. When he rubs the lamp, he releases a terrifying but powerful Genius. This Genius of the Lamp grants Aladdin many wishes – rich food on silver plates, embroidered clothes, fine horses, the intimidation of a sexual rival, forty gold basins, and a marble palace set with jasper, gold, and rubies. In Aladdin’s case, the reproductive payoffs of releasing and mastering the Genius are real: he wins the love of a princess and sires a long line of kings.” Geoffrey Miller in Spent (2009)

2.1 Perspectives on Advertising

2.1.1 Advertising Defined

To determine the interactions between costly signalling, active motives and sex in determining advertising effectiveness, the perspectives of evolutionary psychology and the social sciences regarding advertising are set out. Of particular interest in this study is the controversial role of gender in advertising effects.

How is advertising defined? In a real sense, advertising is meant to turn us toward a product or service by providing information or creating a positive feeling. It is an indirect way of turning a potential customer towards the advertised product or service by providing information that is designed to effect a favourable impression (Percy and Elliot, 2005). Advertising usually initiates a series of responses on the part of the consumer that, if successful, will lead to sales (Percy and Elliot, 2005). According to Percy and Elliot (2005), what is spent on advertising and other marketing communication has to be spent wisely and effectively and this requires a thorough understanding of ‘how advertising works’. There are different perspectives on the working of advertising. Percy and Elliot (2005) divided them into four sectors, namely: passive individuals, passive social/cultural groups, active individuals and active social/cultural groups (figure 1). The core topics of the different domains are below outlined. Later on, the positions of evolutionary psychology and the social sciences in respect to the classification of Percy & Elliot (2005), which are relevant for this thesis, will be outlined.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 20 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Figure 1: Conceptual Map of Perspectives on Advertising (Percy and Elliot, 2005)

 Sector one, Passive individuals: Learning theories and information processing, psycho-dynamic theories and psycho-linguistics.  Sector two, Passive social/cultural groups: Critical theory, propaganda, and ideology, structuralism and semiotics, postmodernism and anthropology.  Sector three, Active individuals: Information economics and uses and gratifications theory.  Sector four, Active social/cultural groups: Socio-linguistics, feminism, social semiotics and visual persuasion theory and post structuralism.

When relating this grid to evolutionary psychology and the social sciences, evolutionary psychology could be mapped into the passive individual’s domain and the social sciences into the active social/cultural groups. Next, the relation between the different perspectives in regards to their domain is outlined.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 21 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

2.1.2 Passive Individuals and Evolutionary Psychology

Passive Individuals

The major theoretical approaches used by marketing academics and advertising practitioners for explaining ‘how advertising works’ are located in the sector passive individuals (Percy & Elliot, 2005). Relevant in this case are the psycho-dynamic theories. Psycho-dynamic has a long history in both applied marketing research and critical views of advertising effects (Percy & Elliot, 2005). The psycho-dynamic theories of Freud have dominated this domain and have been most popular in this regard around 1950. Motivational research showed that the unconscious mind plays an important role in our responses to advertising (Percy & Elliot, 2005). Standing on the premise that consumers are not always aware of the reasons of their actions, motivational research attempts to discover underlying feelings, attitudes, and emotions concerning product, service, or brand use (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). According to Schiffman and Kanuk (2004), Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality provided the foundation for the development of motivational research and is a cornerstone of modern psychology. They stated that this theory was built on the premise that unconscious needs or drives – especially biological and sexual drives – are at the heart of human motivation and personality.

Schiffman and Kanuk (2004) summarized motivational research. They argued that motivational research is regarded as an important tool by marketers who want to gain deeper insights into the whys of consumer behaviour than conventional marketing research techniques can yield. Since motivational research often reveals unsuspected consumer motivations concerning product or brand usage, its principal use today is in the development of new ideas for promotional campaigns, ideas that can penetrate the consumer’s conscious awareness by appealing to unrecognized needs. Motivational research also provides marketers with a basic orientation for new product categories and enables them to explore consumer’s reactions to ideas and advertising pre-tests at an early stage to avoid costly errors. Moreover, there is new and compelling evidence that the unconscious is the site of a far larger portion of mental life than even Freud envisioned. Research studies show that the unconscious mind may understand and respond to nonverbal symbols, form emotional responses, and guide actions largely independent of conscious awareness (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). Researchers who apply Freud’s psychoanalytic theory to the study of consumer personality believe that human drives are largely unconscious and that consumers are primarily unaware of their true reasons for buying what

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 22 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de they buy. These researchers tend to see consumer purchases and/or consumption situations as a reflection and an extension of the consumer’s own personality. However, several of Freud’s colleagues disagreed with this contention that personality is primarily instinctual and sexual in nature. Instead, these neo-Freudians believed that social relationships are fundamental to the formation and development of personality. Thus, there is a lot of disagreement about the way human behaviour has to be viewed. Evolutionary psychology is in particular interested in unconscious needs and is introduced next.

Evolutionary Psychology

These unconscious needs or drives are the basis of evolutionary psychology. In psychology, evolutionary psychology is an emerging paradigm (Saad and Gill, 2000). In accordance to Colarelli and Dettmann (2003), evolutionary theory views the development of biological and social systems as occurring through a process of variation, selection, and retention – occurring through a slow process of small incremental improvements, rather than through a priori design. They stated that two assumptions of evolutionary psychology are (a) that the human mind is modular, consisting of numerous psychological mechanisms and (b) that these mechanisms are adaptations. An adaptation is any feature of an organism that has been important to increasing inclusive fitness, that is, the propagation of genes into future generations, either directly by mating and caring for offspring or indirectly by helping kin survive and reproduce. It is primarily concerned with why and function questions. Why do humans prefer foods that are salty, sweet, and have a high fat content? What are the possible adaptive functions of those preferences (e.g. prevention from lack of such nutrients)? The primary processes in biological and social evolution are natural selection and sexual selection. Evolutionary psychologists state that the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors (Tooby and Cosmides, 1997). Specifically, many phenomena can be subsumed within a reproductive, survival, kin selection, and reciprocation module (Saad, 2007). The reasoning of evolutionary psychologists is, according to Saad (2007) that universal themes as found in cultural products exist in their particular forms because they are reflections of our innate human nature. Thus, evolutionary psychology is a promising research stream in determining human, and therefore consumer behaviour, which is not fully explored yet. Sex differences are of great interest in evolutionary psychology and evolutionary psychology indicates promising directions for the advertising industry. Next, an evolutionary perspective on sex roles and advertising preferences are presented.

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An Evolutionary Perspective on Sex Roles and Advertising Preferences

From an evolutionary perspective men and women differ in some evolved mechanism. According to Colarelli and Dettmann (2003) this is due to different adaptive problems faced by the sex and the differences in traits favoured by sexual selection (Miller, 2000). Because of the physiological and psychological demands associated with gestation, birth, lactation, and attachment, human females provide more parental investment in offspring than males (Andersson, 1994). Parental investment is the effort and resources devoted to an offspring that improves its chances of survival. The welfare of children is more dependent on the mother staying alive than the father (Högberg and Broström, 1985). Therefore, natural selection favoured women who were less prone to risky and aggressive behaviour. Although contextual factors (e.g., threats of offspring) can trigger aggressive behaviour in women, women are, on average, significantly less aggressive, more fearful, and less prone to take risks than men (Campbell, 1999). Women’s greater parental investment also helps to explain why women are more nurturing and have a greater interest in children than do men.

Members of each sex engage in intra-sexual competition to compete for access to desirable members of the opposite sex. In most primate species, including humans, male-male competition is more intensive than female-female competition. In male-male competition, males compete with one another for status, resources, and social dominance. They do this ultimately to gain access to sexually receptive females (Geary, 1998). Female-female competition involves competition for high-quality males for mating and marriage partners. Women typically compete with one another for resources by presenting themselves in ways that are viewed as attractive to men, ways that “mirror the attributes associated with male choice of mating partners, such as physical attractiveness”.

Personal advertisements, where people advertise themselves in periodicals and on the Internet hoping to attract a short- or long-term mate, are a particularly revealing arena to examine the interplay of evolved sex differences and marketing. Males are more likely to advertise their professional and financial status, whereas women typically advertise attributes related to physical beauty (Greenlees & McGrew, 1994). Height, education, resources, and age of male advertisers are positively related to the number of responses from females. Age, weight, and education are negatively related to female hit rates (Pawlowski and Koziel, 2002).

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Regarding evolved preferences Colarelli and Dettmann (2003) stated that much of traditional marketing mirrors evolved sex differences. Product development and advertising reflect the constellation of evolved sex differences grouped under the categories of communal (e.g. concern for others, interpersonal harmony) and agentic (e.g. task emphasis, competition) orientations. Women are more communal and men more agentic (Archer, 1996). Colarelli and Dettmann (2003) gave also examples: gender-based toy preferences appear to be due more too innate propensities than socialization and women tend to form closer ties with same-sex friends than men; female groups are less hierarchical than male groups. Furthermore, they argued that marketers have taken advantage of intensive, flat female networks by engaging women to directly sell to their friends.

As regards to same-sex competition, Colarelli and Dettmann (2003) argued that people engage in same- sex (i.e. intra-sexual) competition to make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex than their competitors. A central arena of female-female competition is physical attractiveness. This helps to account for the appeal of cosmetics to women and for the success of the cosmetics industry: the function of cosmetics is to enhance physical beauty. Women are the primary consumers of cosmetics; men account for only 7 percent of the market share (Colarelli and Dettmann, 2003). Much of male-male competition involves competition over status, resources, and reputation (Buss, 1999). The implications are that products that assume little sex differences in sexuality and competitive orientation often fail in the marketplace (Colarelli and Dettmann, 2003). Thus, according to evolutionary psychologists, advertising effectiveness could be different in case the receiver is a man or a woman. Next, the domain and viewpoint of the social sciences is presented.

2.1.3 Active Social/Cultural Groups and the Social Sciences

Active Social/Cultural Groups

This sector considers a number of relatively recent applications of theory to advertising; these views take a strong social orientation and assume active participation on the part of advertising’s audience (Percy and Elliot, 2005). Relevant in this case are feminism and post structuralism.

Firstly, the viewpoint of feminists, this is relevant because of the role which gender plays in this study. According to Percy and Elliot (2005), there is a long history of feminist analysis of advertising, almost

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 25 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de always from a critical perspective that implicates advertising in maintaining and even enhancing aspects of male subordination of women. According to Milner and Collins (2000), sex-role portrayal in advertisements is an extensively studied topic. Researchers interest in this area results from a variety of factors, the most important of which are that marketers use gender as a primary segmentation variable and that social scientists use advertisements to examine gender stereotyping in the media. These research efforts typically focus on female portrayals. They consistently indicate that women often are not favourably portrayed and that their roles are frequently narrowly defined (Milner and Collins, 2000). For example, a study of Furnham and Mak (1999) showed that males are frequently shown as the authoritative central figures, whereas females are more likely to be users of the advertised products.

Secondly, post structuralism will be discussed for the reason that it has a broad view on the influence of advertisements on people’s behaviour. A basic assumption of post structuralism is that communicative texts are subject to polysemy: that is, it is open to multiple interpretations by the audience. Furthermore, Schiffman and Kanuk (2004) stated that a late-twentieth-century development in advertising theory was that of meaning-based models. These see advertising not as a conduit of information but as a resource for the construction of personal, social, and culturally situated meanings where human reality is mediated. In this view, consumers construct a variety of meanings from advertising as outcomes of a personal history and subjective interests as expressed through their life themes and life projects. This view of the influence of advertisements is relevant for this study, because it is related to the view of social scientists, who believe that socialization processes are on the basis of advertising effects. Thus feminism and post structuralism perspectives are based on other principles than the viewpoint of evolutionary psychologists. The associated broad research stream of the social sciences is discussed next.

Social Sciences

Social scientists argue that the contents of human minds are primarily (or entirely) free social constructions, and are autonomous and disconnected from any evolutionary or psychological foundation (Tooby and Cosmides, 1997). Furthermore, these authors stated that according to this view, the social world organizes and injects meaning into individual minds, but our universal human psychological architecture has no distinctive structure that organizes the social world or imbues it with characteristic meanings. In relation to this, Colarelli and Dettmann (2003) argued that cultural evolution

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 26 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de is a process whereby social systems and practices develop from variations and by a process of trial and error, rather than through deliberate design. With cultural evolution, acquired characteristics, such as behaviours and values, are culturally selected and retained. For example, according to Saad (2007), social scientists propose that the mediums of popular culture teach us what it means to be male or female. This viewpoint is inherent to the tabula rasa premise, namely that we are born with empty minds with various subsequent socialization forces shaping us into the individuals that we become. Thus, the viewpoint of the social sciences could also be related to advertising practices. For example, when the media are a socialization force, the media have a significant responsibility to the society. For the reason that it dictates what is appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. The implications for advertising preferences are discussed next.

The Social Sciences Perspective on Sex Roles and Advertising Preferences

The social sciences point of view regarding sex roles is best captured by a quote about the interaction effects of sex-role identity and positioning from Jaffe (1991): “Children learn at an early age which personality traits are linked to their own gender”. The argumentation of Jaffe (1991) is given in the next sentences. By virtue of our gender we learn the appropriate ways to behave in accordance with society’s definition of masculinity and femininity. Masculinity and femininity are the two components of sex role identity. Conventional measures of masculinity include traits often associated with the modern women such as “assertiveness” and “leadership ability”. Conventional measures of femininity include traits often associated with the traditional woman such as “tenderness” and “compassion”. Sex-role inventories have been developed to determine the degree to which individuals adhere to society’s definitions of masculinity and femininity. Our culture has arbitrarily clustered a diverse collection of personality attributes into two mutually exclusive categories – masculinity and femininity – prescribed as more desirable for one or the other sex. Individuals, however, differ on the extent to which they adhere to these idealized standards of masculinity and femininity, with sex-typed individuals adhering more strongly to the traditional standards.

Roughly translated, this means that people are not born as men or women yet socialized into men and women. Morrison and Shaffer (2003) introduce their topic about gender roles something like this. They stated that early advertising research from the 1970s and 1980s provided advertisers with ample justification for continuing to rely on gender-stereotyped portrayals of men and women. Specifically,

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 27 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de several studies demonstrated that even though participants often said that they did not prefer stereotypical depictions of men and women in advertising, or elsewhere, their reactions to advertisements and commercial spokespersons, and their purchase intentions and behaviours were more favourable in response to gender-stereotyped than to non-traditional advertisements. They argue that this research did not only imply that traditionally gendered depictions sell products, but it is also implied that the public was more familiar and comfortable with gender-stereotyped advertisements. Thus, the media are a strong socialization factor according to this view. Next, evolutionary psychology will be compared with the social sciences and it is argued why the perspective of evolutionary psychology is selected for this thesis.

2.1.4 Evolutionary Psychology versus the Social Sciences

Evolutionary psychologists and social scientists agree about the existence of gender differences and the significant changes which have occurred in gender roles and in gender-based divisions of labour. One of the major gender differences is the achievement-affiliation orientation where males are supposed to have a higher level of achievement orientation (Prakash, 1992). In accordance to Prakash (1992), achievement orientation involves the drive to accomplish external goals, to achieve success, and being assertive, independent and self-centred. Affiliation orientation involves concern for other people’s feelings, seeking approval from others, creating nurturing relationships with others, and maintaining interpersonal harmony. Perhaps the most notable of these changes are the dramatic influx of women into the workforce and the progress women have made at entering professions and filling positions once held almost exclusively by men (Morrison and Shaffer, 2003). The occurrence of both an increase in the number of women entering the work force and an evaluation of women’s roles in society has forced dramatic inquiries into the way women think about and purchase many products and services (Jaffe, 1991). However, the disagreement between evolutionary psychology and the social sciences is about the underlying forces which shape the stereotypes over time, and their implications for marketing and advertising practices are different depending on the viewpoint. If one agrees that people are born with empty minds and that socialization forces are shaping us, then the implications are that advertising could be used as strong socialization force in order to persuade potential customers.

There are some serious critics on the viewpoint of evolutionary psychologists. In essence, opponents attacked the view of a biologically based human nature. According to Begley (2009), left-wing activists

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 28 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de and – including biologists – assailed it as an attempt “to provide a genetic justification of the status quo and of existing privileges for certain groups according to class, race, or sex”. Unfortunately, such opponents seem to be driven be ideologically beliefs. The paradox is that a genetic justification of human nature, does not hinder ideologically driven aspirations. If the genetic justification is true, then it seems to be better to accept the evolved differences between men and women, in order to anticipate on the consequences. For example, men and women have to be treated equal, therefore people argue that it is inappropriate to display women in advertisements as subordinate to men. It could be argued that it is more helpful to understand why such advertisements are successful (i.e. if they were not successful, they were never used). Thus, such effective advertisements are the messenger of the problem, not the problem itself. At least, that is the viewpoint taken for this thesis.

Therefore, in comparing evolutionary psychology to the social sciences, this thesis supports the viewpoint of Saad (2004). According to him the social sciences provide a hopelessly inadequate framework for explaining human behaviour. First it has failed in providing a unifying framework from which the disparate social sciences, so the consumer behaviour disciplines, can communicate with one another. Second, proponents of the social sciences do not provide an explanation of the genesis of the myriad of human cultures nor do they provide a rationale for the universality of specific socialization processes. In their view of the world, culture and socialization are the only forces which shape human behaviour. Third, the social sciences solely provide explanations at the proximate level whereas a full understanding of the panoply of the human experience requires theories at both the proximate and ultimate levels. Within the context of human behaviour, proximate explanations address how behaviours, emotions, and/or cognitions function and what they produce as final outcomes. Ultimate explanations address the why question, that is, they provide adaptive explanations as to why specific behaviours, emotions, and/or cognitions exist in the manner that they do.

However, the earlier discussed lack of useful evolutionary psychology marketing studies is alarming. According to Saad (2010), this is possibly due to the discussed critics on evolutionary psychology (e.g. feminism and ideological reason). However, there is still a lot of stimulating work with regard to this topic. The next paragraph introduces applications of evolutionary psychology for advertising.

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2.1.5 Applications of Evolutionary Psychology for Advertising

Marketers wishing to advertise their products face two different types of decisions according to Saad (2004). First, they must decide on the financial and logistical components of the advertising campaign. This includes determining the budget for the campaign, establishing its reach and frequency, deciding which promotional tools to use, and subsequently integrating these into a coherent advertising strategy. Second, they must make a slew of creative decisions with regard to the contents and execution formats of the advertisements. Should the ads employ humour? Will the audience be receptive for romantic appeals? Given the increasing acceptance of evolutionary psychology in the scientific community, Bagozzi and Natarajaan (2000) espouse a need for creative research applying this framework to marketing. In light of their suggestion and the lack of such research in the marketing literature, a potential fruitful opportunity is foreseen in the application of this paradigm to marketing (Saad and Gill, 2000).

The evolutionary minded studies suggest that consumption-relevant processes such as product search, product evaluation, and decision-making are likely to differ qualitatively depending on which adaptive mental system – that is – which evolutionary domain – is being engaged (Griskevicius et al., 2009). This can be highly relevant for the advertising industry, because such considerations suggest that consumers might process information and make decisions in qualitatively different ways depending on, for example, whether they are trying to protect themselves from disease (Argo, 2006), gain status (Sundie et al., 2006), or affiliate with others (Maner et al., 2007). Such potential marketing effects are relevant in a variety of settings. For example: different mental mechanisms can be engaged in a variety of contexts, such as when a person encounters a particular background on a website (Mandel and Johnson 2002), sees a particular emotional expression (Ackerman et al. 2006), is shopping in a particular store environment (Kaltcheva and Weitz, 2006), or is surrounded by particular scents or music (Bosmans, 2006; Zhu and Meyers-Levy, 2005). Colarelli and Dettmann (2003) presented the following relevant topics regarding intuitive thinking in marketing. Effective advertising can make the difference between whether consumers ignore a product or buy it. However for marketing to work, marketers must base their activities on a reasonable accurate view of human nature. What model might they be using? The content of many advertisements and the nature of many consumer products suggest that marketing practitioners are using a model of human nature that is implicitly based on evolutionary psychology. Consumption is a biosocial activity (Sherry, 1991). As such, psychological mechanisms have played an

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 30 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de important role in the development of preferences for many consumer products and marketing practices (Burnham and Phelan, 2000). As the consumer culture emerged, marketing tapped into psychological mechanisms in developing products and advertisements. For example, John B. Watson was one of the first psychologists to recognize the importance of emotional appeals in advertising (Buckley, 1982).

Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009) were the first in showing empirically the value evolutionary psychology could have for marketing. They presented the joint interaction of active motives (i.e. romantic versus neutral), costly signals (i.e. conspicuous consumption versus blatant benevolence) and gender. These studies are from an evolutionary psychology perspective relevant because of the relation between different motives and the expected behaviour of humans. Building on the results of those studies, this thesis will investigate if the hypotheses are applicable in an advertising setting. Below, key issues of the studies are presented.

Study I Griskevicius et al. (2007), “Blatant Benevolence and Conspicuous Consumption: When Romantic Motives Elicit Strategic Costly Signals”:

Romantic motives: Men + Conspicuous consumption (i.e. expensive watches) Women + Blatant benevolence (i.e. supporting charity funds)

Study II Griskevicius et al. (2009), “Fear and Loving in Las Vegas: Evolution, Emotion and Persuasion”:

Romantic motives: Men and women + Scarcity appeals (i.e. limited edition)

In this case, the modules of Saad (2007) are relevant, because romantic motives belong to the reproductive module (Saad, 2007). The mating decision can be construed as a consumption choice in that individuals can be viewed as “products” in the mating market (Hirschman, 1987). Within the latter market, people advertise themselves as viable products and they search for information about prospective partners (i.e. products) (Saad, 2007). They form a mating intention and subsequently choose a winning suitor and they derogate competitors in a process akin to comparative advertising (Saad,

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2007). Thus, the studies of Griskevicius (2007, 2009) are helpful in combining evolutionary psychology theories to advertising effectiveness. The next paragraph presents the core topics of both studies.

2.2 Interaction between Costly Signals, Active Motives and Gender in Determining Advertising Effectiveness

2.2.1 Costly Signalling as Strategic and Sex-specific Self-presentations

According to Griskevicius et al. (2007) costly signalling is the theory that a variety of conspicuous displays can serve important communicative functions, advertising an individual’s ability to garner scarce resources and possibly signalling the possession of desirable traits that could be passed on to offspring (i.e. advertising your personal competitive advantages in order to attract potential mates). According to Zahavi (1975), it utilizes the handicap principle and a prime example of a handicap is the peacock’s tail. The long, elaborate, and ornate tail of a peacock does not have any adaptive value; it does not serve any tangible, useful purpose that would aid the survival of the peacock. In fact, it only harms its survival chances. Peacocks with longer, more elaborate trains are easier for predators to catch and kill than fellow peacocks with shorter and simpler trains. Therefore, at first sight, they only have costs and no benefits. But that according to Zahavi (1975) is precisely the point. The evolutionary psychologist Kanazawa (2010) makes this point clear in the following examples. Peacocks are advertising to peahens: “Look, I am so genetically fit and I can run so fast that I can still evade the predators with this huge thing hanging from my ass! The other guys are not so fit and the only reason they can evade predators is because their trains are shorter. They wouldn’t be able to evade the predators if their tails are as long as mine! Now whose genes would you like your offspring to carry?” And peahens indeed do prefer to mate with peacocks with longer, more elaborate, and more symmetrical tails that are biologically very expensive to maintain, so that their male offspring will also sport long, elaborate tails that attract females of their generation.

Miller (2009) links this theory directly to marketing practices. He states that instead of running focus groups and spinning theories, marketers could learn more by administrating scientifically calibrated tests of intelligence and personality traits. If marketers or their customers understood biologists’ new calculations about animals ‘costly signalling’, Miller says, they see for example that Harvard diplomas, iPhones and ‘fair trade’ coffee from Starbucks send the same kind of signal as the ornate tail of the

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 32 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de peacock. Sometimes the message is as simple as “I have got resources to burn,” the classic conspicuous waste demonstrated by the energy expended to lift a peacocks tail or the fuel guzzled by a hummer. But brand-name products are not just about flaunting transient wealth. The audience for our signals – prospective mates, friends, and rivals – care more about the permanent traits measured in tests of intelligence and personality, as Miller explains. Furthermore, he states that much of the pleasure we derive from products stems from the unconscious instinct that they will either enhance or signal our fitness by demonstrating intelligence or some of the Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, stability and extraversion. In a series of experiments, Miller (2009) found that people were more likely to expend money and effort on products and activities if they were first primed with photographs of the opposite sex or stories about dating. After this priming, men were more willing to splurge on designer sunglasses, expensive watches and European vacations. Women became more willing to do volunteer work and perform other acts of conspicuous charity – a signal of high conscientiousness and agreeableness, like demonstrating your concern for the third world farmers by spending extra for Starbucks’s ‘fair trade’ coffee. The evolutionary explanation is, according to Miller (2009), that we evolved as social primates who hardly ever encountered strangers in prehistory.

The link between conspicuous consumption and evolutionary psychology is also explained by Saad and Gill (2000) in their applications of evolutionary psychology in marketing. They argue that consumption decisions are adaptive reactions instead of rational choices and that evolutionary theory could be extended to understanding consumer decision making for certain purchases. According to Saad and Gill (2000), most conspicuous consumption (e.g., fancy sport cars, expensive watches, palatial houses, etc.) can be considered a signalling of financial resources. This is clearly linked to increased status and thus higher inclusive fitness for men. Hence, even though the decision rules used by consumers at the proximate or conscious level tend to maximize the utility in a cost-benefit sense, the underlying motives for the purchase might still be driven by fitness maximization rules at the subconscious level. A relevant question in this case is now: can advertising practitioners learn from evolutionary psychology in targeting people with relevant evolutionary cues? For example: how do people evaluate advertisements communicating signs of costly signals? Are the mating strategies of men and women different when evaluating advertisements?

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 33 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

The criteria for behaviour to qualify as a costly signal are as follows (Griskevicius et al., 2007):

 It must be costly to the signaller in terms of economic resources, time, energy, risk, or some other significant domain, whereby the costlier the behaviour the more likely it is to be an honest indicator.  It must be easily observable by others.  The display must ultimately increase the odds that the signaller will gain some fitness advantage through the display, such as increased ability to attract desirable mates.  The signal must be an indicator to potential mates of some important trait or characteristic, such as access to resources, pro-social orientation, courage, health, or intelligence.

Thus, the costly signalling theory could be highly relevant in marketing practices, for the reason that it gives advertising practitioners tools in the creation of advertisements in order to increase effectiveness. Next, differences between men and women are discussed according to costly signalling.

Men versus Women: Sending Mixed Messages

According to Griskevicius et al. (2007), a public act of philanthropy can signal at least two clusters of important characteristics about a person: First, it can signal that an individual has resources or, at least that a person is capable of procuring resources; second, it can signal that an individual has a pro-social personality, whereby the willingness to use one’s resources to help others instead of helping only oneself suggests that a person is kind, sympathetic and helpful. Although both resource-related and pro- social traits are generally desirable in a romantic partner, their relative desirability in a mate may differ for men and women (Li et al., 2002). If so, according to Griskevicius et al. (2007), men and women may be differentially likely to display one or perhaps both traits when motivated to attract a mate. Thus, advertising practitioners could benefit from this when differentiating appeals between men and women. Next, the concepts of costly signalling are introduced.

2.2.2 Resources and Conspicuous Consumption

Although public philanthropy can convey that one has many resources, perhaps a more common way to display one’s wealth is by purchasing lavish and unnecessary things – a concept dubbed conspicuous consumption (Griskevicius et al., 2007). Conspicuous consumption is the act of spending money to gain

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 34 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de status and impress others by indicating that one has enough money to purchase frivolous and wasteful goods (Griskevicius et al., 2007). For instance, although Americans donated around two billion dollar to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Americans spend almost two billion dollar each year to purchase and fuel their Hummers – a highly conspicuous and wasteful sports utility vehicle (Griskevicius et al., 2007). From a purely rational perspective, spending money on unnecessary and wasteful purchases as opposed to making more efficient investments might seem counterintuitive. From a costly signalling perspective, however, conspicuous consumption in humans may serve a conceptually analogues function to a peacock’s conspicuous display of his tail (Saad, 2007).

2.2.3 Pro-social Orientation and Blatant Benevolence

In addition to signalling wealth, public philanthropy can also convey pro-social personality traits (Penner and Finkelstein, 1998). Whereas conspicuous consumption may reveal a person’s selfishness and narcissism, public philanthropy may reveal virtues characteristics, such as kindness, sympathy and helpfulness (Griskevicius et al., 2007). However, one does not need to give away wads of cash to be seen as helpful. Even a poor person could do public volunteer work in the community, donate blood, or solicit donations for noble causes in a crowded mall – all of which are types of publicly visible pro-social behaviour called blatant benevolence (Griskevicius et al., 2007). Blatant benevolence is a pro-social behaviour that is costly in terms of time and effort, that is useful for publicizing one’s pro-social nature, and that is not necessarily efficient at providing aid to those in need (Griskevicius et al., 2007). For example, a wealthy venture capitalist can donate several hours of his or her time to publicly volunteer for a good cause, even though that person can use the same time to earn and donate money that would provide significantly more aid to those who need it (Griskevicius et al., 2007).

2.2.4 Costly Signalling in the Mating Context

In accordance to Griskevicius et al. (2009), besides surviving, our ancestors were successful at solving the adaptive problem of attracting and reproducing with mates (or we would not be here to talk about it). Off all decisions that individuals make within their lifetimes, few are as important as their choice of a mate (Saad, 2007). The mate attraction system is activated by cues that elicit romantic desire, including photos, stories or movies that depict attractive opposite-sex individuals, which suggest potential for reproductive success. Once activated, this state should promote basic strategies associated with greater

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 35 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de mating success in ancestral environments (Griskevicius et al., 2006). An evolutionary core strategy associated with successful mate-attraction is salient positive differentiation. For example, when various species of animals are approached by the opposite sex, they often engage in conspicuous displays that function both to attract the attention of the opposite sex and positively differentiate the individual from the same-sex rivals (Miller, 2000). Consistent with such animal behaviour, romantic desire in humans also appears to lead people to engage in salient public displays such as conspicuous consumption and public charity (Griskevicius et al., 2007).

Research on human mate choice suggests that the ability to procure resources ought to be used more frequently by men than women because women place considerably more emphasis on cues of wealth and status when selecting a romantic partner (Griskevicius et al., 2007). For example, women indicate that economic resources in a man are a necessity, whereas men appraise economic resources in a woman as a luxury (Li et al., 2002). Consistent with the asymmetry in preferences, mere exposure to an attractive opposite-sex individual induces men, but not women, to place a higher value on having wealth and being ambitious (Roney, 2003). Moreover, Griskevicius et al. (2007) supported their hypothesis that a romantic motive should lead men, but not necessarily women, to increase their displays of conspicuous consumption.

Furthermore, women seem to value pro-social traits in a man, possibly because such characteristics reveal a man’s willingness to invest in offspring (Griskevicius et al., 2007). On the other hand, women seem to prefer a combination of pro-social and dominance-related traits over either trait alone (Griskevicius et al., 2007). Moreover, women sometimes prefer male sexual partners who are openly competitive rather than warm and agreeable (Griskevicius et al., 2007). Such findings are also consistent with research showing that romantic motives lead women to generally become more group-oriented (Griskevicius et al., 2006). Griskevicius et al. (2007) investigated this topic and found support for the hypothesis that women are more willing for blatant benevolence in a mating context than men.

As mentioned by Griskevicius et al. (2007), this framework does not imply that conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence are sexually motivated at a conscious level. Instead, it implies that these behaviours are influenced by mating-related factors – such as pictorial or verbal cues of mating opportunities, individual sex, and public consciences – in ways that would be expected if these behaviours served underlying adaptive courtship functions. Thus, theories regarding costly signalling in

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 36 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de the mating context are helpful in determining which motives lead human behaviour. If advertising practitioners are aware of these different motives, they could create advertisement in such a way that it corresponds with people’s emotions. Next, basic persuasion heuristics are discussed regarding costly signalling appeals.

2.2.5 Basic Persuasion Heuristics

Each day people are confronted with innumerable pieces of information and hundreds of decisions (Griskevicius et al., 2009). Not surprisingly, people seldom deeply process each piece of information, instead often relying on quick mental shortcuts – general heuristic rules – to guide their attitudes and behaviours (Cialdini, 2001). In line with such findings, it is no coincidence that advertising has come to use fewer lengthy logical arguments, and has instead infused ads with simple and time-tested persuasive appeals (Griskevicius et al., 2009). Such appeals capitalize on heuristic processes because these persuasive tactics are especially effective when people are not particularly motivated or capable of thinking deeply about a message (Petty and Wegener, 1998).

In relation to this, the concept of costly signalling gets more applicability for advertising in another study by Griskevicius et al. (2009). They examined how fear-inducing versus romantic contexts influenced the effectiveness of two widely used heuristics – social proof (e.g., “most popular”) and scarcity (e.g., “limited edition”). Results supported predictions from an evolutionary model, showing that fear can lead scarcity appeals to be counter-persuasive, and that romantic desire can lead social proof appeals to be counter-persuasive. This seems to be compatible with the topics in the previous paragraphs in such a way that costly signalling in a romantic context can act as scarcity appeal. In other words, “stand out from the crowd”. Therefore, the characteristics of scarcity appeals needs further attention for this study.

Scarcity Appeals

The persuasion tactic of scarcity is based on the general heuristic rule that if a product or opportunity is rare, it must be good (Griskevicius et al., 2009). Appeals based on the principle of scarcity tend to highlight features related to the distinctiveness, rarity, or unavailability of a product or an opportunity (Dhar and Sherman, 1996). For example, companies purposefully market “limited edition” products that are perceived to be more distinct and less available (Griskevicius et al., 2009).

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 37 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Because a heuristic cue such as scarcity is known to increase the effectiveness of ads, sales pitches, and even appeal to engage in pro-environmental behaviour (Schultz et al., 2007), these strategies consistently appear on a short list of proven persuasion tactics in marketing, persuasion and psychology (Cialdini, 2001). But ads featuring these persuasive tactics are often preceded by some content such as a television program, which may influence the effectiveness of these appeals (Griskevicius, 2009). From an evolutionary perspective, emotions are conceived as activators of executive motivational sub-systems that direct energy in ways designed to deal with particular kinds of adaptive problems (Cosmides and Tooby, 2000). Once such a system is activated, it promotes a cascade of perceptions, cognitions, and behaviours conductive to the successful solution of the adaptive problem (Griskevicius et al., 2006, 2007). In addition, the activation of one such system can inhibit or even suppress the activation of other potentially competing systems (Brendl et al., 2003). Engaging the self-protection system, for example, can suppress attention to attractive opposite-sex individuals (Griskevicius et al., 2009). Thus, the concept of costly signalling is strengthened by the theory regarding scarcity appeals. Finally, the joint interplay of costly signalling, active motives and gender in the evaluation of advertisements, following from the literature review, is discussed.

2.2.6 Joint Interplay Costly Signalling, Active Motives and Gender in the Evaluation of Advertisements

The studies of Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009) are the only one which determined the joint interplay of costly signalling, active motives and gender, although, still not purely in a marketing context. To translate the studies to a marketing context it is most valuable to use the same foundation of the research designs. Therefore, the activation of romantic motives and the tested variables – attitude for the product and suspected consumer behaviour – have to be same. Furthermore, the costly signals – conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence – will be presented in advertising cases, instead of simple product name droppings. In specific, conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals will be developed for several products. The following equations are relevant in this case: the evaluation of conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals for men and women with romantic motives and with neutral motives. According to the discussed literature, evolutionary psychologists would suspect the following. First, men with romantic motives will evaluate conspicuous consumption appeals higher than blatant benevolence appeals. Second, women with romantic motives will evaluate blatant benevolence appeals higher than conspicuous consumption appeals. Lastly, there will be no

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 38 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de difference between men and women with neutral motives. The applications of this new design are more valuable for marketing professionals in comparison with the studies of Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009). Since, it gives creators of advertisements the opportunity to differentiate between costly signals for the same product. Furthermore, emotions could be manipulated in the storyline of the advertisements.

This study investigates advertising effectiveness with the measures attitude and behaviour. It is worth notifying that there is general agreement that attitudes are learned (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). This means, according to Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004), that attitudes relevant to purchase behaviour are formed as a result of direct experience with the product, word-of-mouth information acquired from others, or exposure to mass-media advertising, the Internet and various forms of direct marketing. They argue that it is important to remember that although attitudes may result from behaviour, they are not synonymous with behaviour. Instead, they reflect either a favourable or an unfavourable evaluation of the attitude object. It could be expected in this study that people use their previous experiences with the advertised products. Thus, people could have previous build associations according to the way in which a product is viewed as status related (counterpart of conspicuous consumption) or pro-social related (counterpart of blatant benevolence). For that reason it is essential to test in this study for previous build associations. This study also accounted for this alternative theory. That is, the core of this study is determining advertising effectiveness for conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals. Furthermore, an alternative design is presented via a comparable analysis regarding the associations people have with products. Before turning to the conceptual model, the suspected position of the social sciences in this debate is depicted.

2.2.7 Measures of advertising effectiveness

Attitude and intended behaviour are two commonly used scales in measuring advertising effectiveness (Olson and Sentis, 1986). The studies of Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009) applied them as well; therefore it is reliable to use these measures in this study. This study determined the attitude toward the product

(Ap) and intended behaviour for the advertised product (Bp). In the studies of Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009), attitude and behaviour showed a similar pattern. The same could be expected in this study. However, according to Fazio and Zanna (1981) there is a consistency problem of the relation between attitude and behaviour. They stated that early conceptions of attitudes implicitly assumed that

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 39 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de understanding a person’s attitude was tantamount to accurately predicting his or her behaviour. On the other hand, they showed the apparent lack of evidence to support the assumption of attitude-behaviour consistency. Furthermore, while intention and behaviour, e.g., brand choice, may often be closely related, this is not always the case (Curlo, 1992). In summary, the relationship between attitude and intended behaviour is not unambiguous in literature.

2.2.8 The Suspected Position of the Social Sciences in this Debate

As discussed, evolutionary psychology and the social sciences take contradicting perspectives in regard to advertising effects. Evolutionary psychologists argue that humans have an innate nature which is responsible for the relative influence of advertising on people’s attitudes and behaviour. On the other hand, the social sciences argue that advertising, as medium, is itself responsible for people’s attitudes and behaviour. According to the literature it is reasonable that the social sciences will expect the following in this study. In essence, the social sciences reason that because of changing gender roles (e.g. men are more and more participating in household activities), the differences between men and women are becoming smaller and smaller. Therefore, over time they will expect that the evaluation of men and women of costly signalling appeals is more or less the same. Moreover, they will reject the theory about evolutionary domains which are influencing human behaviour. In this study, the domain of mate attraction is studied, by means of romantic motives. Therefore, the social sciences will expect no influence of romantic motives on the influence of costly signalling appeals. However, when the results of this study are in favour of the evolutionary psychology predictions, the social sciences could argue that it is ‘learned’ behaviour (i.e. men and women learned over time the expected way to react on costly signals in accordance to romantic motives). Conversely, if the results of this study will favour the position taking by the social sciences, evolutionary psychologists could argue that costly signals in the context of advertising are not as obvious as needed for people’s interpretations of them. Thus, the creation of the costly signalling appeals needs careful attention. The conceptual model build for this thesis is presented in the next chapter.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 40 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Chapter 3 Conceptual Model

A combination of the models of Griskevicius (2007, 2009) as described in the literature review, is for this study extended to an advertising context. The revealed impact of the joint interaction between costly signals, active motives and gender on the evaluation of advertisements is still not clear. Therefore, the research question in this study is: what is the impact of the joint interaction of costly signals, active motives and gender on advertising effectiveness? This study determines the relationship between costly signals, active motives, gender and measures of advertising effectiveness. In this model, attitude and intended behaviour (brand loyalty) are the measures of effectiveness. These measures are chosen because they are used as well in comparable studies (Griskevicius et al., 2009). Thus, the independent variables are conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals, the moderators are active motives and gender, and finally the dependent variable is advertising effectiveness by means of attitude and behaviour. Furthermore, to anticipate for previous build product associations in case of conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence, their corresponding associations (i.e. status and pro-social) are added as alternative for the advertising appeals. Noted that this is not the core of the study, it is used to anticipate on unexpected results. When analysing the effects of product associations, it will also be possible to check the effects of combinations between product associations and advertising appeals. Thus, the advertising appeals as independent variables are the core of the study, and - to account for product associations - an alternative model will be tested. In case of the alternative model, the advertising appeals will be replaced as independent variables by status and pro-social associated products. Next the hypotheses are defined according to the literature review.

3.1 Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: Costly Signalling

There is a three way interaction between costly signalling appeals (i.e. conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence), active motives (i.e. romantic motives and neutral motives) and gender for the measures of advertising effectiveness (i.e. attitude and behaviour). Specifically, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for conspicuous consumption appeals if one is man. Controversially, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 41 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de effectiveness for blatant benevolence appeals if one is woman. Furthermore, neutral motives are not related to the measures of advertising effectiveness.

Hypothesis 2: Status and Pro-Social Associated Products

There is a three way interaction between product associations (i.e. status and pro-social), active motives (i.e. romantic motives and neutral motives) and gender for the measures of advertising effectiveness (i.e. attitude and behaviour). Specifically, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for status associated products if one is man. Controversially, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for pro-social related products if one is woman. Furthermore, neutral motives are not related to the measures of advertising effectiveness.

Hypothesis 3: Status and Pro-Social Associated Products, Strengthened by Costly Signalling Appeals

There is a three way interaction between product associations strengthened by costly signalling appeals (i.e. status/conspicuous consumption and pro-social/blatant benevolence), active motives (i.e. romantic motives and neutral motives) and gender for the measures of advertising effectiveness (i.e. attitude and behaviour). Specifically, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for status associated products strengthened by conspicuous consumption appeals if one is man. Controversially, romantic motives are positively related to the measures of advertising effectiveness for pro-social related products strengthened by blatant benevolence appeals if one is woman. Furthermore, neutral motives are not related to the measures of advertising effectiveness.

The conceptual model is depicted in figure 2. Next, the variables will be defined more specifically.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 42 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Figure 2: Conceptual Model of the Joint Interaction between Costly Signals, Active Motives and Gender in Determining Advertising Effectiveness

3.2 Independent Variables

Conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals are the independent variables in the model. According to Griskevicius et al. (2007), conspicuous consumption is defined as: “The act of spending money to gain status and impress others by indicating that one has enough money to purchase frivolous and wasteful goods.” On the other hand, blatant benevolence was defined as: “A pro-social behaviour that is costly in terms of time and effort, that is useful for publicizing one’s pro-social nature, and that is not necessarily efficient at providing aid to those in need.” The literature review showed that the appeals are effective in situations of romantic desire. The variables are operated by means of advertising appeals. In specific, an advertisement for product X could be promoted by means of status related features (e.g.: “with this exclusive watch you will impress others”) or by means of pro-social related possibilities (e.g.: “by supporting this charity fund you will show others your engagement with others”). The first appeal is related to conspicuous consumption and the second appeal to blatant benevolence. One of the key applications of this study could be that it gives creators of advertisements the ability to switch between conspicuous consumption appeals and blatant benevolence appeals for the same product.

The independent variables will be operated by eight advertisements for four products. For every product, two advertisements are built. One advertisement will promote the product by means of

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 43 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de conspicuous consumption appeals, and the other advertisement will promote the product by means of blatant benevolence appeals. The products picked for study are all relevant and discussed in evolutionary literature. The products used are the Hummer car, Giro555, a purebred dog and a MBA study. In case of the last three products it is a bit curious to talk about ‘products’, although in essence all of them have to be marketed in order to reach business goals. Next the relevance of the four products is highlighted.

The earlier introduced requirements for behaviour to qualify as a costly signal (costly in terms of resources, easily observable, fitness advantage and indicator of important trait or characteristic to potential mate) are useful in determining when the use of specific products could fall into this category. Miller (2009) discussed products according to these criteria, and introduced cars, pets, and formal education as costly signals. Furthermore, Griskevicius et al. (2007) illustrated costly signalling in his study by the amounts of money donated to charity funds. Table 2 summarizes why the Hummer (car category), Giro555 (charity category), a purebred dog (pet category) and a MBA (formal education category) obviously could fit with the criteria.

Table 2: Products and Costly Signalling Characteristics

Costs Observability Fitness Important Trait Advantage Hummer Fuel Road Impressing Access to potential Resources/Care About mates Safety Giro 555 Donations Boasting Impressing Access to potential Resources/Involvement mates Purebred Dog Purchase/Maintenance Visitors/Walking Impressing Access to Outside potential Resources/Care mates MBA Lecture Fees/Effort Boasting Impressing Access to potential Resources/Intelligence mates

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 44 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

As one can see, the costly signalling function of the products could either focus on access to resources or some other desirable trait like caring. Thus, the challenge in this study is to test if it is effective to switch between conspicuously consumption and blatant benevolence for the same product.

3.3 Moderators

Active motives and gender are the moderators in the model. In this case romantic motives and neutral motives are the moderators. According to Griskevicius et al. (2007), romantic motives in humans appear to lead people to engage in salient public displays such as conspicuous consumption and public charity. In this study is chosen to compare romantic motives solely with neutral motives. Romantic motives will be stimulated in this study by thinking about ones favourite date. A comparison with, for example, other states of “happiness”, could anticipate for overlapping components. Although, to keep the study synoptic, the mental states tested are limited to romantic motives and a neutral mental state. Moreover, to relate the results of this study with their counterparts (Griskevicius et al., 2007, 2009), it is sufficient to construct the model in this way.

Gender is the second moderator of the model. Although both resource related and pro-social traits (i.e. conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence) are generally desirable in a romantic partner, their relative desirability in a mate may differ for men and women (Li et al., 2002). Therefore, men and women may be differentially likely to display one or perhaps both traits when motivated to attract a mate (Griskevicius et al., 2007). According to Griskevicius et al. (2007), a romantic motive should lead men, but not necessarily women, to increase their displays of conspicuous consumption. Furthermore, mating motives lead to a boost in blatant benevolence for women. In evolutionary psychology there are other factors which are relevant in studying human behaviour. According to Miller (2000), the following factors need attention:

 Age and marital status: different stages in lifecycle could mean different motivations in romantic mental states.  Monthly income: costly signalling is condition dependent. Therefore people will advertise themselves within one’s budget (condition-dependence lets us choose our battles). In this study, income is categorized in five clusters of monthly income: (one) less than €500,-, (two) between

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 45 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

€500,- and €1000,-, (three) between €1000,- and €1500,-, (four) between €1500,- and €2000,- and (five) more than €2000,-.  Produced offspring: Wasteful displays that seemed attractive during courtship may no longer be valued if they persist after offspring arrive – there is a trade-off between parental responsibilities and conspicuous display.

The group of respondents should be homogenous according to these factors. Participants for this study will be recruited on a university, therefore it is expected that most of them are not married, have approximately the same income and do not have children. Thus, the group is expected to be homogenous.

3.4 Dependent Variables

Attitude (Ap) and behavioural intentions (Bp) with regards to the advertised products are the dependent variables in the model. These measures are the components of brand loyalty (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). According to Schiffman and Kanuk (2004), brand loyalty is the ultimate desired outcome of consumer learning. They defined the components as follows. Firstly, “Attitudinal measures are concerned with consumers’ overall feelings (i.e. evaluation) about the product and the brand and their purchase intentions”. Moreover, a whole universe of consumer behaviours – consistency of purchases, recommendations to others, top rankings, beliefs, evaluations, and intentions – are related to attitudes (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). This study focuses on the affective component of attitudes that is a consumer’s emotions or feelings about the advertised product. As discussed in the literature review, attitudes are also learned behaviour. Therefore, unknown factors could influence the attitude evaluations. This study accounted for this data. Secondly, “Behavioural measures are based on observable responses to promotional stimuli – repeat purchase behaviour rather than attitude toward the product or brand”. This way of measuring the effects of advertising is in congruence with the study of Griskevicius et al. (2009). This study is an extension of that study; therefore this construction is the most appropriate. Thus, the studies could be easily compared in this way.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 46 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Chapter 4 Research Design

4.1 Pilot Study

Construction of Conspicuous Consumption and Blatant Benevolence Appeals in Advertisements

As presented in the conceptual model, four products were selected and for all of them a conspicuous consumption appeal and a blatant benevolence advertisement appeal were constructed. In table 3 is outlined how the products could either communicate a conspicuous consumption appeal and a blatant benevolence appeal. In appendix I the created costly signals are depicted. Because of the use of four products, it is possible to combine the conspicuous consumption appeals and compare them with the combination of blatant benevolence appeals.

Table 3: Construction of Costly Signalling Appeals

Advertisements Appeals Products Conspicuous consumption Blatant benevolence Hummer Access to resources Pro-social orientation (safety (fuel) for passengers) Giro 555 Access to resources Pro-social orientation (donations) (involvement) Purebred dog Access to resources Pro-social orientation (exclusivity) (carefulness) MBA Intelligence Pro-social orientation (boasting) (Ambition to work for NGO)

Stimulus Manipulation Check

The advertisements underwent a pilot test to be sure that they were understood in this way. A pre-test was conducted. The eight ads were created in such a way that they closely match the criteria of costly signalling and the definitions of conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence. A manipulation check was conducted to explore if participants were capable to infer the intentions of the eight ads. Furthermore, this also gave an indication of the time needed for the participants to understand the ads

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 47 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de well. For each product, the conspicuous consumption appeal and the blatant benevolence appeal was checked by two participants. The pilot-test was conducted under people who are comparable with the sample population (i.e. students). No ‘experts’ were asked to participate, because of the possibility that they interpreted the advertisements in another way as the sample population should do.

In total, six participants participated in the pilot-test. Each participant evaluated for two products the conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeal. The participants conducted the test behind their computer at home. The ages of the participants ranged from twenty to twenty-five (two men and for women. The participants were asked to rank the advertisements according to the definitions of conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence; in this test they were unacquainted with the rationale of the study. All participants ranked the products as intended for this research. Afterwards, a short interview was conducted to get a deeper understanding of the interpretations of the advertisements by the participants. Subsequently, they indicated if the product photographs used were congruent with the costly signalling appeals. Firstly, they indicated that for the Hummer the blatant benevolence manipulation could be more explicit (i.e. focus more on the social activities that could be organized by the owner). Secondly, the blatant benevolence manipulation for Giro 555 could be more conscious, in such a way that supporting a charity fund is observable by others. At last, for the purebred dog the blatant benevolence appeal was not clear in the way it could enhance pro-social traits. Overall, for Giro 555, the purebred dog and the MBA it was easily for the participants to interpret the meanings of the appeals. However, for the Hummer it was more puzzling and more attention was needed. In the interviews the participants indicated some subtle changes for the promotion texts. Thus, overall the stimulus manipulation check indicated a useful construct for the costly signalling appeals.

Pre-Test Questionnaire

To prevent for errors and vagueness in the questionnaire a pre-test was conducted. Four participants participated in the pre-test. Participants came out the same group as for the stimulus manipulation check and evaluated the test at home behind the computer. The results did not indicate significant errors.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 48 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

4.2 Main Study

Participants

Participants were students of the University of Groningen and participated in return of a course credit or seven euro. Participants came to the laboratory and were seated behind a computer in a cubicle. This study was combined with another study running at the research laboratory. Therefore, the participants participated in two studies. Besides students of the university, some other people participated on other locations. In total 122 participants filled out the questionnaire. 67 percent of the participants were male and 33 percent was female. The majority of the participants participated in trade off course credits and this is probably the reason for the high account of males. As the study in the laboratory regarding course credits prior to my study, was only open for females. Half of the participants were romantically primed and the other half was primed with neutral cues. In costly signalling theory the variables which will likely influence behaviour are age, marital status, income and produced offspring. Therefore, homogeneity of the sample population regarding these variables is desirable. This is the case, as will become clear in the following descriptive statistics. The average age was 19.5 years (range between 17 and 28, SD = 2.11). None of the participants was married and none of them produced offspring. The participants were distributed across the income categories (as described in the research design) as follows: 68 percent in category one, 27.1 percent in category two, 3.3 percent in category three and 1.6 percent in category four.

Procedure

A laboratory setting was used to conduct the experiment. The experiment was designed in Adobe Authorware (media software). Before participants entered the experiment they read the information brochure and signed the informed consent. To manipulate the participant’s active motives, the first part of the experiment consisted of the mating or neutral motive induction. After that, they read the instruction for evaluating the advertisements. Participants viewed advertisements that contained a conspicuous consumption appeal or a blatant benevolence appeal and afterwards they indicated on a nine point Likert-scale attitudes and behavioural intentions toward the advertised products. In order to create the advertisements and their appeals, a picture of the product/service was presented to the participants in combination with the brand name, pay-off and short promotion text. Furthermore, for

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 49 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de interpreting the results it was crucial that the participants had the same level of knowledge regarding the products under investigation. Therefore, before every advertisement was displayed, participants read a short introduction story about the product. To ascertain conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence preferences, participants were asked to judge advertisements which had either the intention to persuade with conspicuous consumption appeals, blatant benevolence appeals or opposing appeals. Two advertisement routes were created in order to be sure that all the participants answered both question on conspicuous consumption appeals and blatant benevolence appeals. Furthermore, to be sure that nobody evaluated a conspicuous consumption appeal and a blatant benevolence appeal for the same product, both advertisement routes contained only one appeal. The two routes were randomly assigned to the participants. In the end, the participants were equally distributed across the two routes. Half way the experiment, participants underwent the “booster shot” to be sure that they were still activated with romantic motives or neutral motives. After the advertisements, participants answered the questions regarding the status and pro-social associations (see appendix II). Finally, participants answered the questions regarding age, gender, marital status, income and children. Afterwards, participants were thanked for their cooperation and were informed about the goal and rationale of the study.

Mating Induction

To induce a romantic mindset in the participants, photographs of three attractive individuals on the participant’s computer screen (Griskevicius, Cialdini and Kenrick, 2006). The attractive people were selected from popular ratings sites (Askmen and Premiere). Participants were asked to select the person whom they thought was the most desirable romantic partner, and after making their selection, to imagine that they were preparing to go on a first date with this individual. They were to spend up to three minutes writing on the computer about their idea of the perfect first date with the person they selected (Griskevicius et al., 2007). Participants in the neutral setting underwent a similar procedure devoid of any romantic connotations. They saw a photograph of an ordinary street with several buildings and were asked to imagine being on that street (Griskevicius et al., 2007). They then spent up to three minutes writing about their idea of the most pleasant weather conditions in which to walk around and look at the buildings. See appendix III for the details of the mating induction. All participants underwent a booster shot halfway the study to ensure that they were still in a romantic or in a neutral frame of mind. The procedure of the booster shot was that the participants saw the attractive

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 50 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de individuals or the ordinary street again and then they were asked to think again about their date or walk in street.

Measures

After viewing the product advertisements, participants responded to six questions indicating their attitudes (Ap) toward the Hummer, Giro 555, Purebred dog, and a MBA and their intentions to purchase

(Bp) the products/services, both of which were expected to produce a similar pattern of results. Specifically, they answered three nine-point questions regarding their attitudes toward the products/services (bad-good, unfavourable-favourable, negative-positive). They then answered three nine-point behavioural intentions questions with endpoints not at all and very much regarding (a) the extent to which they were interested in finding out more about the products/services, (b) how likely they were to consider purchasing them, and (c) how likely they were to actually purchase them. These measures are in line with a study of Griskevicius et al. (2009), therefore, the results of this study could be easily compared to that study. See appendix II for the scales.

Experimental Design

An experiment was conducted in order to manipulate the independent variable (i.e. costly signalling; conspicuous consumption vs. blatant benevolence) and to measure their effect on the dependent variable (brand loyalty) and to control the extraneous variables. Besides sex, active motive is one of the supposed moderators (i.e. romantic versus neutral). To increase the internal validity of the experiment, the experiment closely matches the design of the related studies of Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009). Furthermore, the alternative model is presented in the conceptual model. In the alternative model the tested independent variables are status related products and pro-social related products. A controlled environment – which is possible in a laboratory setting – is more suited to prime participants with mental states, because participants are more focused on their tasks. The laboratory environment offers a high degree of control, because it isolates the experiment in a carefully monitored environment (Malhotra, 2007). According to Malhotra (2007), a laboratory experiment also tends to produce the same results if repeated with similar participants, leading to high internal validity. Eighty people (i.e. forty men and forty women) were required to participate in the experiment. The design of the experiment was a two (participant sex) by two (active motive: mating versus neutral) by two (costly

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 51 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de signalling appeals: conspicuous consumption versus blatant benevolence) repeated measures design. Sex and mental state were between-participants factors, whereas costly signalling appeals where within-participants factors, meaning that everyone answered questions regarding both conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals. Consequently, the conspicuous consumption appeals for the different products could be combined, just like the blatant benevolence appeals, noted that participants did not see a conspicuous consumption appeal and a blatant benevolence appeal for the same product. The design results in four treatment conditions. See table 4 for an overview of the design. For the alternative analyses (i.e. test for product associations: status versus pro-social), the within participants factors (i.e. conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals) could simply be replaced by status and pro-social associated products.

Table 4: Repeated Measures Design of the Joint Interaction between Costly Signals, Active Motives and Gender

Repeated Measures Design Between-participants factors: sex and mental state Within-participants factors: Romantic primes Neutral primes costly signalling appeals treatment condition one treatment condition two Conspicuous Consumption Twenty men and Twenty men and Twenty men and Twenty men and Blatant twenty women twenty women twenty women twenty women Benevolence

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 52 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Chapter 5 Results

5.1 Analysis Techniques

To test the hypothesis, a repeated measures ANOVA model is used to measure group differences between groups. First, the mean is calculated for every participant regarding their scores on conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals. After that, the mean for all participants is calculated. When an interaction was found, a paired t-test is performed to determine which contrasts are significant. Therefore, the conspicuous consumption appeals for the four products are clustered together, just as the blatant benevolence appeals. This is in congruence with the study of Griskevicius (2007), who clustered spending for several products together. To determine if a product is related to status or pro-social, paired t-tests were performed. Because of participant’s ratings on these product associations, it was not valid to perform a manipulation check again, in order to be sure that the participants interpreted the advertisements as intended. Ideally a sample for this kind of analysis contains at least forty participants per cell (twenty men and twenty women). Because the costly signalling appeals are within participants factors, in this case all the four cells need at least ten men and ten women. As described earlier, those amounts of participants are reached. Furthermore, the requirements in this analysis are a normal distribution for each cell, similar variances in each cell, that the population variances of the repeated measurements are equal and the population correlations among all pairs of measures are equal (tested by Mauchly’s) and at last, the inter-correlations have to be homogenous (tested by Box’s M). To test the hypotheses, confidence intervals of 95 percent en 90 percent er used. The homogeneity of the groups according to evolutionary relevant variables (age, marital status, income and children) was tested by analyzing the variation.

5.2 Overview of Results

5.2.1 Main Study: Costly Signals

Conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence are in this study the manipulated appeals in advertisements. Although, this study used existing and well known products, therefore prior knowledge could influence the results. Therefore, participants rated the products on their association with status (the core of conspicuous consumption) and pro-social (the core of blatant benevolence). In this case it

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 53 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

was also possible to analyze the results regarding these evaluations. Accordingly, the results of the main study are separated in four parts: conspicuous consumption appeals, blatant benevolence appeals, brands associated with status and brands associated with pro-social. As everyone answered three questions regarding attitude, and three questions regarding purchase behaviour, the mean was calculated for both. The repeated-measures analyses presented in the next paragraph focuses only on within-participant effects. For the reason that this study determines the relationships between costly signalling appeals (i.e. conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence), active motives and sex and not an evaluation of the combined data of conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence.

5.2.2 Conspicuous Consumption and Blatant Benevolence

The dependent measures, Ap and Bp, did not show a similar pattern in case of conspicuous consumption

and blatant benevolence, and are therefore separated. First the results for Ap will be presented (see for the descriptive results table 5).

Table 5: Descriptive Results Costly Signalling Appeals Regarding A p

Active Sex σ N Active Sex σ N Motive Motive

Romantic Men 6.17 1.26 43 Romantic Men 5.43 1.21 43 Conspicuous Women 5.68 1.20 20 Blatant Women 5.89 1.10 20 Consumption Total 6.01 1.25 63 Benevolence Total 5.58 1.19 63

Ap Neutral Men 6.16 1.22 39 Ap Neutral Men 5.87 1.35 39 Women 6.10 1.21 20 Women 6.33 1.55 20 Total 6.14 1.20 59 Total 6.03 1.43 59 Total Men 6.17 1.23 82 Total Men 5.64 1.29 82 Women 5.89 1.21 40 Women 6.11 1.35 40 Total 6.08 1.22 122 Total 5.79 1.32 122

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A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows the following main results. The Tests of Within-Participant Effects revealed an interaction between conspicuous consumption- and blatant

2  benevolence appeals and sex. F(1, 118) = 4.464, p = .037, η p = .035. (Box’s M: p = .401;  ≈ .000). Further interactions were not supported. To test if the differences found between conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals for each participant group are significant, two paired samples t-tests are performed. See figure 3 for the planned contrast and table 6 for the statistics. The tests showed that the contrast was significant for men (p = .007). However, for women it was not

significant (p = .193). Thus, from the Ap results could be concluded that sex is a within-participants factor, in so far that men are significantly more in favour of conspicuous consumption appeals. Therefore, the hypothesis of a three way interaction for behaviour, sex and active motives is not supported. Although, there is a mechanism working were men evaluate conspicuous consumption

appeals higher. No other significant interactions were found for Ap.

Table 6: Paired Samples Statistics Planned Contrast Costly Signalling Appeals and Sex Regarding Ap

6.3 N σ

6.1 Pair 1: Conspicuous 6.17 82 1.23

Conspicuous Men Consumption Ap Mean Ap 5.9 Consumption Blatant 5.64 82 1.29 Blatant Benevolence

5.7 Benevolence Ap Pair 2: 5.89 40 1.21 5.5 Conspicuous Men Women Women Consumption Ap Blatant 6.11 40 1.35

Figure 3: Planned Contrast Costly Signalling Appeals and Sex Regarding Ap Benevolence Ap

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Secondly, the results for Bp are displayed below (see for the descriptive results table 7).

Table 7: Descriptive Results Costly Signalling Appeals Regarding Bp

Active Sex σ N Active Sex σ N Motive Motive

Romantic Men 4.24 1.66 43 Romantic Men 3.42 1.30 43 Conspicuous Women 3.45 1.69 20 Blatant Women 4.34 1.60 20 Consumption Total 3.99 1.70 63 Benevolence Total 3.71 1.45 63

Bp Neutral Men 4.01 1.78 39 Bp Neutral Men 4.06 1.38 39 Women 3.71 1.41 20 Women 3.97 1.79 20 Total 3.91 1.66 59 Total 4.03 1.52 59 Total Men 4.13 1.71 82 Total Men 3.73 1.37 82 Women 3.58 1.54 40 Women 4.16 1.69 40 Total 3.95 1.67 122 Total 3.87 1.49 122

A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows the following main results. The tests of within- participant effects revealed an interaction between conspicuous consumption appeals and blatant benevolence appeals and sex. Moreover, there was also a significant three way interaction between conspicuous consumption appeals and blatant benevolence appeals, sex and active motives. First, the

2  data regarding the former interaction: F(1, 118) = 4.801, p = .030, η p = .039. (Box’s M: p = .547;  ≈ .000). The contrast is plotted in figure 4 and the statistics are displayed in table 8. To test if the differences found between conspicuous consumption appeals and blatant benevolence appeals for each participant group are significant, two paired samples t-tests are performed. The tests showed that the contrast was significant for men and women (men: p = .059; women: p = .054). Secondly, the data

2  regarding the latter interaction: F(1, 118) = 2.900, p = .091, η p = .024. (Box’s M: p = .547;  ≈ .000). The interaction is plotted in figure 5 and the statistics are displayed in table 9. No further interactions were supported. To test if the differences found between conspicuous consumption appeals and blatant benevolence appeals for each participant group are significant two paired samples t-tests are performed for each of the two motives groups. For the romantic motive group the test showed that the contrast was significant for men and women (men: p = .008; women: p = .030).

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Table 8: Paired Samples Statistics Planned Contrast Costly Signalling Appeals and

Sex Regarding Bp

N σ 4.2 Pair 1: Conspicuous 4.13 82 1.71

4 Men Consumption Bp Conspicuous Blatant 3.73 82 1.37 Mean Bp 3.8 Consumption Blatant Benevolence Bp 3.6 Benevolence Pair 2: Conspicuous 3.58 40 1.54

Women Consumption Bp 3.4 Men Women Blatant 4.16 40 1.69

Benevolence Bp Figure 4: Planned Contrast Costly Signalling Appeals and Sex Regarding Bp

4.4

4.2

4

Mean Bp 3.8 Conspicuous 3.6 Consumption Blatant 3.4 Benevolence 3.2 Men Women Men Women Romantic Romantic Neutral Neutral

Figure 5: Planned Contrast Costly Signalling Appeals, Active Motives and Sex Regarding Bp

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Table 9: Paired Samples Statistics Planned Contrast Costly Signalling Appeals, Active Motives and Sex Regarding Bp

N σ

Pair 1: Conspicuous Consumption Bp 4.24 43 1.66 Men Romantic 3.42 43 1.30 Blatant Benevolence Bp

Pair 2: Conspicuous Consumption Bp 3.45 20 1.69 Women Romantic 4.34 20 1.60 Blatant Benevolence Bp

Pair 3 : Conspicuous Consumption Bp 4.01 39 1.78 Men Neutral 4.06 39 1.38 Blatant Benevolence Bp

Pair 4 : Conspicuous Consumption Bp 3.71 20 1.41 Women Neutral 3.97 20 1.79 Blatant Benevolence Bp

For the neutral motive group, the test showed that there were no significant contrasts (men: p = .449; women: p = .317). Thus, from the Bp results could be concluded that sex is a within participants factor regarding behaviour, in so far that men are more in favour for conspicuous consumption appeals and women for blatant benevolence appeals. Moreover, a three way interaction between conspicuous consumption appeals and blatant benevolence appeals, sex and actives motives implicates the following. Men are more in favour of conspicuous consumption appeals when they have romantic motives, instead of neutral motives. Moreover, women are more in favour of blatant benevolence appeals when they have romantic motives, instead of neutral motives. Therefore, the hypothesis of a three way interaction for costly signalling, sex and active motives are supported for the Bp ratings.

Finally, it became clear that for the Bp ratings the interactions were much stronger than for the attitude ratings.

5.2.3 Alternative Study: Product Associations and Costly Signals

As notified earlier in the report, people have associations with brands and products regarding status (related to conspicuous consumption) and pro-social (related to blatant benevolence). Therefore, those associations are tested, and according to this, the advertised products are classified as either status related or pro-social related. In table 10 the descriptive results of this paired samples t-test are presented.

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Table 10: Descriptive Results Status versus Pro-social

N σ Pair 1: Status 7.91 122 1.19

Hummer Pro-Social 3.95 122 2.28

Pair 2: Status 3.76 122 2.09

Giro 555 Pro-Social 7.58 122 1.78

Pair 3 : Status 5.55 122 2.58

Purebred Dog Pro-Social 3.66 122 2.12

Pair 4 : Status 7.56 122 1.55 MBA Pro-Social 4.71 122 1.98

The test showed for every pair a significant discrepancy (p = .000). Derived from a comparison of the means, it could be concluded that the Hummer, a purebred dog and a MBA are related to status and Giro 555 is related to pro-social. The following results also account for the probably intensifying combination of a status related product with a conspicuous consumption communication message, and so the combination of a pro-social related brand/product with a blatant benevolence communication message. Unfortunately, this was not possible for the pro-social category, for the reason that there was only one case (Giro555) and each participant evaluated either a conspicuous consumption appeal or a blatant benevolence appeal. Therefore, it was not possible to account for within-participant factors. The following repeated measures analyses of variances (ANOVA) are performed:

 Status products versus pro-social products (to detect overall differences);  status products with conspicuous consumption appeals versus status products with blatant benevolence appeals (to detect the impact of costly signalling messages on status products);  status products with conspicuous consumption appeals versus social products with blatant benevolence appeals (to detect differences between intensified opposite signals) ;  social products with conspicuous consumption appeals versus status products with blatant benevolence appeals (to check for control condition with mixed messages).

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In the case of status and pro-social Ap and Bp showed a similar pattern, therefore the results are combined.

5.2.4 Status and Pro-Social

Status products versus pro-social products

A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed no significant interactions according to the tests of within-participant effects. The descriptive results are presented in table 11.

Table 11: Descriptive Results Status and Pro-Social Associated Products

Active Sex σ N Active Sex σ N Motive Motive

Romantic Men 4.64 1.01 43 Romantic Men 5.35 1.45 43 Status Women 4.60 0.94 20 Pro-Social Women 5.54 1.64 20 Total 4.63 0.98 63 Total 5.41 1.50 63 Neutral Men 4.75 0.79 39 Neutral Men 5.86 1.25 39 Women 4.75 0.83 20 Women 5.87 2.16 20 Total 4.75 0.80 59 Total 5.86 1.59 59 Total Men 4.69 0.91 82 Total Men 5.59 1.37 82 Women 4.68 0.88 40 Women 5.70 1.90 40 Total 4.68 0.90 122 Total 5.63 1.56 122

Therefore, the hypothesis of a three way interaction for costly signalling, sex and active motives are not supported for this case.

Status products with conspicuous consumption appeals versus status products with blatant benevolence appeals

A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows the following main results. The tests of within- participant effects revealed an interaction between status products with conspicuous consumption

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appeals and status products with blatant benevolence appeals and sex. The descriptive results are presented in table 12.

Table 12: Descriptive Results Status Associated Products/Conspicuous Consumption and Status Associated Products/Blatant Benevolence

Active Sex σ N Active Sex σ N Motive Motive

Romantic Men 5.35 1.50 43 Romantic Men 4.36 1.22 43 Status Women 4.63 1.21 20 Status Women 5.06 1.14 20 Conspicuous Total 5.12 1.44 63 Blatant Total 4.59 1.23 63 Consumption Neutral Men 5.23 1.47 39 Benevolence Neutral Men 4.87 1.37 39 Appeals Women 4.85 1.31 20 Appeals Women 4.96 1.31 20 Total 5.10 1.42 59 Total 4.90 1.34 59 Total Men 5.29 1.48 82 Total Men 4.60 1.31 82 Women 4.74 1.25 40 Women 5.01 1.21 40 Total 5.11 1.43 122 Total 4.74 1.29 122

2 First, the data regarding the former interaction: F(1, 118) = 12.121, p = .014, η p = .050. (Box’s M: p = .511; ≈ .000). The interaction is plotted in the figure 6 and statistics are displayed in table 13. No further interactions were supported. To test if the differences found between the status products with conspicuous consumption appeals and the status brand/products with blatant benevolence appeals for each participant group are significant, two paired samples t-tests are performed. The tests showed that the contrast was only significant for men and not for women (men: p = .002; women: p = .161). Thus, again there is a mechanism working were men evaluate conspicuous consumption appeals higher. However, the hypothesis of a three way interaction for costly signalling, sex and active motives is not supported.

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Table 13: Paired Samples Statistics Planned Contrast Status Costly Signals N σ

Pair 1: Status 5.29 82 1.48

Men Conspicuous 4.2 Consumption

4 Status 4.60 82 1.31 Status Conspicuous Blatant Mean Total 3.8 Consumption Benevolence Status Blatant Benevolence 3.6 Pair 2: Status 4.74 40 1.25 Women Conspicuous 3.4 Consumption Men Women Status 5.01 40 1.21 Figure 6: Planned Contrast Status/Conspicuous Consumption versus Status/Blatant Blatant Benevolence and Sex Benevolence

Status products with conspicuous consumption appeals versus social products with blatant benevolence appeals

A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed no significant interactions according to the tests of within-participant effects. The descriptive results are presented in table 14. Therefore, the hypothesis of a three way interaction for costly signalling, sex and active motives are not supported for this case.

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Table 14: Descriptive Results Status Associated Products/Conspicuous Consumption versus Pro-Social Associated Products/Blatant Benevolence

Active Sex σ N Active Sex σ N Motive Motive

Romantic Men 4.37 1.33 15 Romantic Men 5.21 1.36 15 Status Women 4.16 1.13 13 Pro-Social Women 5.76 1.12 13 Conspicuous Total 4.27 1.22 28 Blatant Total 5.46 1.26 28 Consumption Neutral Men 4.28 0.87 21 Benevolence Neutral Men 5.98 0.95 21 Appeals Women 4.80 1.03 11 Appeals Women 6.44 1.98 11 Total 4.46 0.95 32 Total 6.14 1.37 32 Total Men 4.32 1.07 36 Total Men 5.66 1.18 36 Women 4.45 1.11 24 Women 6.07 1.57 24 Total 4.37 1.08 60 Total 5.83 1.35 60

Social products with conspicuous consumption appeals versus status products with blatant benevolence appeals

A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed no significant interactions according to the tests of within-participant effects. The descriptive results are presented in table 15. Therefore, the hypothesis of no interactions for costly signalling, sex and active motives are supported for this case.

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Table 15: Descriptive Results Status Associated Products/Blatant Benevolence versus Pro-Social Associated Products/Conspicuous Consumption

Active Sex σ N Active Sex σ N Motive Motive

Romantic Men 4.10 1.07 28 Romantic Men 5.42 1.51 28 Status Women 4.11 1.07 7 Social Women 5.14 2.40 7 Blatant Total 4.10 1.06 35 Conspicuous Total 5.37 1.69 35 Benevolence Neutral Men 3.99 1.10 18 Consumption Neutral Men 5.72 1.54 18 Appeals Women 3.99 0.90 9 Appeals Women 5.17 2.27 9 Total 3.99 1.02 27 Total 5.54 1.79 27 Total Men 4.05 1.07 46 Total Men 5.54 1.52 46 Women 4.04 0.95 16 Women 5.16 2.25 16 Total 4.05 1.03 62 Total 5.44 1.72 62

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Chapter 6 Discussion

6.1 Summary of Findings

The goal of this study was to determine the joint interaction between costly signals, active motives and gender in the context of advertising effectiveness. The two costly signals were conspicuous consumption appeals and blatant benevolence appeals, represented by the Hummer, Giro 555, a purebred dog and a MBA study. Furthermore, the two active motives under investigation were romantic and neutral. The measures of advertising effectiveness were attitude and behaviour. In summary, for men it was expected that romantic motives did increase advertising effectiveness for products advertised by conspicuous consumption appeals or alternatively for status related products in general. In case of the last prediction, it was expected that status related products are more effective when promoted with conspicuous consumption appeals. In contrast, for women it was expected that romantic motives did increase advertising effectiveness for products advertised by blatant benevolence appeals or alternatively for pro-social related products in general. In case of the last prediction, it was expected that pro-social related products are more effective when promoted by blatant benevolence appeals.

Hypothesis I: Costly Signalling

Hypothesis I predicted a three way interaction between costly signalling appeals, active motives and gender in the context of advertising effectiveness. In specific, it was expected that a romantic motive enhanced advertising effectiveness of conspicuous consumption appeals for men. In contrast, for women it was expected that romantic motives enhanced advertising effectiveness of blatant benevolence appeals. Consequently, it was expected that there are no differences between people with neutral motives.

This hypothesis was partially supported. For the behaviour component of advertising effectiveness the predicted three way interaction was found. Although, it has to be noticed that the interaction effect was significant at a 90 percent confidence level, therefore the results have to be interpreted with some caution. Specifically, the results showed that men with romantic motives scored higher on the behaviour measure when persuaded with conspicuous consumption appeals than blatant benevolence appeals. For women, the opposite was true. Furthermore, participants in the neutral active motive showed a

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 65 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de similar behavioural pattern. For the attitude component of advertising effectiveness, no three way interaction effect was found. However, also for attitude a main interaction was found between costly signalling appeals and sex. In specific, men scored in both active motives higher for attitude when persuaded by conspicuous consumption appeals. However, for women there was no significant interaction. Overall, these results indicated that the studies of Griskevicius et al. (2007, 2009) are also applicable in determining advertising effectiveness.

It is not clear why attitude and behaviour did not show a similar pattern. It is unlikely that construction of the scales account for the differences. That is, the scales were built in the same way. Both constructs consisted of three questions on nine point scales. Furthermore, the difference between both measures is found in the moderating factor of active motives. Specifically, it was the romantic active motive that made men act in contrast with their behaviour. In other words, all men have a preference for conspicuous consumption appeals, although only a romantic motive stimulates behaviour in congruence with their preferences. An obvious explanation could be that people not always behave in congruence with their attitudes. However, still somewhat puzzling, this could be very interesting for predictions based on evolutionary psychology. Specifically, costly signalling could be motivated by ‘external reasons’ (e.g. impressing potential mates) and perhaps own attitudes are of no interest. For example, imagine people doing donations for charity funds. Probably all people like the work of Giro 555, however not all of them actually support Giro 555. Evolutionary psychology suggests that romantic motives elicit different strategic costly signals in men and women (Griskevicius, 2007). It is reasonable to argue, and supported by this study, that this only holds true when people are actually in the position (romantic active motive) to truly behave in correspondence to costly signals (conspicuous consumption or blatant benevolence). Furthermore, literature suggests that people may prefer products, even though they dislike their advertisements, i.e., advertising disliking does not necessarily lead to brand rejection, and vice versa. However, this explanation does not explain why the interaction for attitude was only significant for men and not for women (Curlo, 1992).

Hypothesis II: Status and Pro-Social associated products

Hypothesis II is an alternative hypothesis and predicted a three way interaction between status versus pro-social associated products, active motives and gender in the context of advertising effectiveness. Those relationships were added to the study to account for previous build associations in accordance to

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 66 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de status and pro-social related product images. More specific, it was expected that a romantic motive enhanced advertising effectiveness of status associated products for men. In contrast, for women it was expected that romantic motives enhanced advertising effectiveness of pro-social associated products. Consequently, it was expected that there are no differences between people with neutral motives.

This hypothesis was not supported. No interactions at all were supported and attitude and behaviour showed a similar pattern. This implicates that a status or pro-social association did not influence the way men and women evaluate advertisements in the romantic and neutral active motive. Therefore, this study strengthened hypothesis I, for the reason that costly signalling appeals are of more significance in determining advertising effectiveness than previous associations. It is unlikely that the differences found between hypotheses I and II are caused by the research design. Both analyses are applied in the same way, using the same results. Although, all the products used for this study showed a significant association for either status or pro-social. Therefore, it is unlikely that the associations did not have any impact on advertising effectiveness. It could be that the costly signalling appeals influenced the results. For example, a status associated product could be more effective in case of a conspicuous consumption appeal and less effective in case of a blatant benevolence appeal. Hypothesis III accounts for these predicted interactions.

Hypothesis III: Status and pro-social associated products, strengthened by costly signalling appeals

Hypothesis III is the second alternative hypothesis and predicts a three way interaction between status products strengthened by conspicuous consumption appeals versus pro-social products strengthened by blatant benevolence appeals, active motives and gender in the context of advertising effectiveness. More specific, it was expected that a romantic motive enhanced advertising effectiveness of status associated products strengthened by conspicuous consumption appeals for men. In contrast, for women it was expected that romantic motives enhanced advertising effectiveness of pro-social associated products strengthened by blatant benevolence appeals. Consequently, it was expected that there are no differences between people with neutral motives.

This hypothesis was partially supported and attitude and behaviour showed again a similar pattern. In line with the results of hypothesis II, no interactions were found between status associated products strengthened by conspicuous consumption appeals and pro-social associated products strengthened by

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 67 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de blatant benevolence appeals. Consequently, there was no interaction found between status associated products strengthened by blatant benevolence appeals and pro-social associated products strengthened by conspicuous appeals. In case of status associated products the results showed a significant interaction between costly signalling appeals and sex. Specifically, advertising effectiveness was higher for status associated products advertised by conspicuous consumption appeals than for status associated products advertised by blatant benevolence appeals. Again, the two-way interaction was only significant for men and not for women. Unfortunately, the same analyses could not be performed for pro-social related products, because there was only one case. Therefore, it is not possible to compare the two combinations. However, it indicates that it makes sense to take care of a fit between product associations and costly signalling appeals. One has to keep in mind that in this case the active motives did not have an effect on advertising effectiveness. That is, men did not differ in their ratings between the romantic and neutral active motive. In comparison with hypothesis I, the results show a similar pattern for the attitude component of advertising effectiveness. Furthermore, for the behaviour component there are significant differences found between the two analyses. It could be that because the analyses of hypothesis I exists of more cases, the results are more accurate.

In summary, hypothesis I is supported for the Bp component and Ap is partially supported in case of men who evaluated consequently conspicuous consumption appeals higher than blatant benevolence appeals. Furthermore, all the products could be mapped into the status or pro-social category and therefore it was possible to perform tests according to previous build product associations. It became clear that there was no support for the influence of previous build product associations. Although, there was again a significant effect for men for the evaluations of status associated products strengthened by conspicuous consumption appeals. Therefore, because of the lack of influence of previous build product associations, the support for hypothesis I became much more valuable. In specific, unless for all the products the previous build product associations were significant; it was possible to manipulate all the variables successfully.

6.2 Implications

Overall this study indicates a significant interaction between costly signals, active motives and gender. Firstly, it was clear that men evaluate products advertised by conspicuous consumption appeals higher than products advertised by blatant benevolence appeals. This is consistent with the corresponding

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 68 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de evolutionary psychology literature. However, for women this was less apparent. In case of the comparison of the advertising effectiveness of the costly signalling appeals this study indicates that it makes sense to differentiate between the costly signals for men and women, while taking the active motives into account.

As described in the introduction of this thesis, the implications for advertising practitioners for print advertisements are most important in the context of Web advertising. First, practitioners could anticipate on the activation of different motives before advertisements. Print advertisements could be scheduled during or after romantically loaded films or television programmes. Second, practitioners could manipulate the costly signalling appeals in order to effective reach men and women. Furthermore, product associations do not influence advertising effectiveness in combination with costly signalling appeals. Because of the interaction between the variables, practitioners have to take care of a good fit between the aspects. Moreover, costly signalling appeals could be manipulated for the same product in order to reach different target groups. Taking all these interactions into account, advertising effectiveness will increase. Consequently, because advertising practitioners could either successfully or unsuccessfully anticipate on the described interactions, advertising effectiveness will vary as a function of that anticipation. Lastly, as proposed in the introduction, the developments in technologies make it possible to personalize advertisements in such a way that they detect moods and gender. The results of this study are applicable in designing advertisements by such technologies.

The theoretical implications of this study are as follows. In the discussed debate between evolutionary psychologists and social scientists this study supports some hypotheses originated from evolutionary psychology. The interaction found between men and costly signalling appeals could be explained by evolutionary psychologists via the innate preference for impressing others with their access to resources (Saad, 2007). Controversially, it is expected that social scientists will explain this finding via learned behaviour. Specifically, men are taught at early stages in their life what is the expected behaviour. This study could not indicate whether the evolutionary psychologists or the social scientists are right. However, the interaction found between costly signals, active motives and gender indicates that romantic and neutral motives are influencing human behaviour. This supports the view of Saad (2007) that evolutionary relevant domains, in this case the reproductive domain enhanced by romantic motives, are relevant in determining human behaviour. It would be difficult to argue for social scientists

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 69 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de that the appropriate behaviour for people with different motives is learned. Overall, this study supports some evolutionary psychology propositions.

6.3 Limitations

Although, this study has some important implications for practitioners and theorists, there are some limitations. Firstly, although the laboratory setting was most applicable for this study, it could be that people outside the laboratory setting react not totally in congruence with the results. Secondly, in this study the costly signalling appeals conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence were tested, but it was not checked how people respond to neutral advertising appeals. However, neutral advertising appeals were theoretically not relevant in this study because this study tested for differences between conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence appeals. Therefore, with this study it is not possible to check the relative influence of both appeals against a baseline. However, the aim of the study was to determine the different effects of conspicuous consumption and blatant benevolence. Thirdly, because the pro-social associated advertisements consist of one product it was not possible to determine a three way interaction between the variables, since participants did not evaluate a conspicuous consumption appeal and a blatant benevolence appeal for the same product. Thus, it was hard to indicate the exact impact of status and pro-social related products in comparison with each other.

Furthermore, the alternative analyses of status and pro-social associated products indicate some remarkable results, which are not in line with the results of the core study. Therefore, the results have to be interpreted with some caution. A conservative interpretation of the results is also desirable because of the 90 percent confidence interval used in the core study. Next, it is worth notifying that, although the manipulation check was performed successfully, the costly signals could be interpreted different by people. For this reason it was not possible to determine during this study how participants experience the costly signals. More specific, to account for the alternative analyses, people were already asked to rate products according to status and pro-social. Therefore, it was not valid to ask participants to rate advertisements according to such criteria.

In addition, in this study four cases are picked because of evolutionary relevancy (Hummer, Giro 555, a purebred dog and a MBA); it could be that other products will display other results. Lastly, it is worth notifying that the readings of the romantically primed participants showed that the choice for famous

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 70 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de attractive opposite sex individuals influenced the priming process. From the stories of especially men it became clear that many of them had feelings of inferiority in relation to the picked date. However, the impact of this finding on the success of the priming is not clear. Specifically, it could be that people with low self-confidence will be less willing to impress their date; on the other hand it is possible that such people will increase their costly signals.

6.4 Future Research

In future research, the results of this study could be compared with studies using advertising appeals picked out of real-life campaigns. Furthermore, more product categories have to be tested and to get the most valid results, a longitudinal study is desirable. Next, to anticipate on other limitations of this study, more pro-social associated products have to be tested and need to be compared with status associated products. Furthermore, as there are not a lot of studies in marketing which used an evolutionary approach, it is recommended to make more use of this research stream.

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University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 78 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Appendix I

Introduction Hummer

De Hummer geeft u een enorme snelheid, mobiliteit en bewegingsvrijheid en is multifunctioneel inzetbaar. Het heeft heel veel verschillende mogelijkheden. Hummers hebben de volgende functies: four-wheel drive, onafhankelijke wielophanging, steile nadering en vertrekhoeken, 60 procent klimvermogen en staan 6 inches van de grond af. Hummers zijn in gebruik bij het leger, het marine corps, de luchtmacht en de marine in veel landen waaronder de U.S.

Hummer Conspicuous Consumption

U en uw Hummer, laat het iedereen zien. De Hummer heeft functies die u zich niet voor mogelijk had kunnen houden. Een tocht in uw Hummer is als een avond uit!

Hummer Blatant Benevolence

Nooit meer zorgen over de veiligheid van je passagiers. De Hummer is geweldig om je vrienden en dierbaren in mee te nemen voor mooie tochten. Maak het iedereen naar de zin met de uitgebreide mogelijkheden die de Hummer biedt!

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 79 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Introduction Giro 555

De Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties (SHO) is een Nederlands samenwerkingsverband om humanitaire hulp te geven aan mensen in rampgebieden. Het zamelt centraal donaties in, informeert het publiek en coördineert de hulp die aan de rampgebieden wordt gegeven.

Giro 555 Conspicuous Consumption

Hoeveel kunt u missen? Doneer zoveel als u op kunt brengen en steun daarmee de Giro 555 campagne voor Haïti! Laat u zien!

Giro 555 Blatant Benevolence

Wat doet het met u om te horen over het leed van de duizenden slachtoffers in Haïti? Mensen in nood hebben uw gulle donaties nodig. Stimuleer ook uw omgeving om de slachtoffers zoveel mogelijk hulp te bieden. Steun nu de Giro 555 campagne voor Haïti!

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 80 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Introduction Purebred Dog

Een rashond is een hond die is ingeschreven in het stamboek van een erkend hondenras. Een rashond moet in uiterlijk en gedrag voldoen aan de omschrijvingen van dat ras in een rasstandaard. Een rashond wordt geacht zijn eigenschappen zuiver te vererven, dat wil zeggen dat twee honden van hetzelfde ras jongen voortbrengen die weer alle gewenste eigenschappen tonen. De mate waarin rashonden voldoen aan de rasstandaard wordt beoordeeld op hondententoonstellingen, de best beoordeelde dieren worden bekroond. De belangen van de eigenaars van rashonden worden behartigd door rasverenigingen en kennelclubs.

Purebred dog Conspicuous Consumption

Verrijk uw leven met een rashond en laat iedereen de kwaliteiten en vaardigheden zien van uw hond tijdens shows en wedstrijden. Investeer in uw rashond en de rashond betaalt u gegarandeerd terug!

Purebred dog Blatant Benevolence

Verrijk uw leven met een schattig rashondje. Geef het een leven zoals u dat zelf ook zou willen. Investeer in uw hond en geef het het leven dat het verdient. De liefde die het beestje geeft zal aanstekelijk werken, ook op uw omgeving.

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 81 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Introduction MBA

De Nyenrode Business Universiteit is de oudste particuliere universiteit van Nederland. Nyenrode werd opgericht in 1946. Het onderwijs is gericht op het (internationale) bedrijfsleven. De Nyenrode Business Universiteit is geaccrediteerd door Equis, Ambas en NVAO.

MBA Conspicuous Consumption

Stelt u zich voor om indruk te maken op volle zalen... Investeer in uw carrière en start een studie aan de Nyenrode universiteit. Zo verwerft u de benodigde kennis en vaardigheden om te bouwen aan een glansrijke carrière.

MBA Blatant Benevolence

Wat kunt u doen om van de wereld een betere plaats te maken voor iedereen? Investeer in uw toekomst en start een studie aan Nyenrode om de kennis en vaardigheden te verwerven die nodig zijn om ook de armste vooruit te helpen. Word een stimulans voor anderen en durf het verschil te maken!

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 82 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Appendix II

Attitude Questions

"Hoe beoordeelt u product X op een schaal van slecht naar goed, waar 1 staat voor heel slecht en 9 voor heel goed?"

"Hoe beoordeelt u product X op een schaal van onaantrekkelijk naar aantrekkelijk, waar 1 staat voor heel onaantrekkelijk en 9 voor heel aantrekkelijk?"

"Hoe beoordeelt u product X op een schaal van negatief naar positief, waar 1 staat voor heel negatief en 9 voor heel positief?"

Behaviour Questions

"Hoeveel interesse heeft u nu om meer te weten te komen over product X op een schaal van 1 tot 9, waar 1 staat voor helemaal niet en 9 voor heel veel?"

"Hoe waarschijnlijk is het dat u zult overwegen nu of in de toekomst product X aan te schaffen op een schaal van 1 tot 9, waar 1 staat voor helemaal niet en 9 voor heel veel?"

"Hoe waarschijnlijk is het dat u nu of in de toekomst ook daadwerkelijk product X zult aanschaffen op een schaal van 1 tot 9, waar 1 staat voor helemaal niet en 9 voor heel veel?"

Previous Build Product Associations Questions

"In hoeverre associeert u het bezit van product X met status en indruk maken, waar 1 staat voor helemaal niet en 9 voor heel erg?"

"In hoeverre associeert u het bezit van product X met pro-sociaalgedrag, waar 1 staat voor helemaal niet en 9 voor heel erg?"

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 83 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Appendix III

Attractive Individuals

Question: Als u mocht kiezen, welke van de volgende personen vindt u het meest geschikt als romantische partner?

To-do: Nu krijgt u 3 minuten de tijd om op te schrijven hoe het zou zijn om met uw geselecteerde persoon op een eerste date te gaan. Gebruik hiervoor het pen en papier dat op uw bureau ligt. De foto's zijn ter herinnering.

Booster

Denk terug aan de eerdere beschrijving van uw voorgestelde date, welk plaatje komt het dichtst in de buurt van uw verhaal?

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 84 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de

Street

Question: Stelt u zich voor hoe het zou zijn om op dit moment door deze straat te lopen.

To-do: Nu krijgt u 3 minuten de tijd om te beschrijven hoe het zou zijn om door deze straat te lopen, de huizen te bekijken en wat het beste weer zou zijn. Gebruik hiervoor het pen en papier op uw bureau. De foto onder het tekstvak is ter herinnering.

Booster

Denk terug aan de eerdere beschrijving van uw aanwezigheid in de straat, welk plaatje komt het dichtst in de buurt van uw beschrijving van het weer?

University of Groningen, 2010 | MSc Thesis: “Costly Signalling as Persuasion Heuristic in Advertising” 85 Author: Ruijter van Steveninck, M. de