Exploring physiologic reactions to persuasive information

Hanne A.A. Spelt (Corresponding author), Luisa Asta, Els T. Kersten-van Dijk, Jaap Ham, Wijnand A. IJsselsteijn, Joyce H.D.M. Westerink

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
139 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Persuasion aims at changing peoples’ motivations and/or behaviors. This study explores how and when physiology reflects persuasion processes and specifically whether individual differences in motivations and behaviors affect psychophysiologic reactions to persuasive information. Participants (N = 70) with medium or high meat consumption patterns watched a persuasive video advocating limited meat consumption, while their electrodermal and cardiovascular physiology was measured. Results indicated that the video increased participants’ moral beliefs, perceived behavioral control, and reduction intentions. This study also found an increase in physiologic arousal during the persuasive video and that people with motivations less aligned to the persuasion objective had more physiologic arousal. The findings encourage further psychophysiologic persuasion research, especially as these insights can potentially be used to personalize persuasive messages of behavior change applications.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere14001
Number of pages18
JournalPsychophysiology
Volume59
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022

Funding

This work was supported by INHERIT and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 667364. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Human‐Technology Interaction Group at the Eindhoven University of Technology. In specific Milou Feijt for rating the persuasive stimuli. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge Gregory Lewis (University of Bloomington) for his help with the time‐series analysis.

FundersFunder number
European Union's Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Framework Programme667364

    Keywords

    • Humans
    • Individuality
    • Intention
    • Morals
    • Motivation
    • Persuasive Communication
    • persuasion
    • affective computing
    • personalized persuasive technologies
    • ECG
    • psychophysiology

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