Understanding intentions and mental states of others makes people more suspicious of high-pressure, low transparency sales tactics.

Awareness helps to see through persuasive ads

A recent research conducted by scientists from the University of Oregon found that a good part of public feels skeptical towards persuasive advertising of products and thus would be less willing to buy them, ScienceDaily.com reported.

The study has analyzed peoples’ attitude to ads from the “theory of mind” point of view, a social-cognitive concept that deals with a human ability to understand the states of mind and aspirations of others.

What is the theory of mind?

It’s the ability to understand other people’s intentions and mental states that assists in developing social skills. An important part of it is to recognize that other people’s feelings and mental states are different to our own.

In kids, the low level of the theory of mind is easily visible, and it improves with their development. For very small children, their parents’ minds and goals have to resemble theirs. When a child wants a teddy bear for birthday, they think that mom wants the same.  But after a year or two, the kid comes to realize that mom’s wishes can be different and she might prefer shoes instead.

As we get older, our ability to empathize grows, and together with it grows our understanding of other people’s intentions. Most people easily recognize the real meaning behind the words or actions of others.

The researchers set to check how different people take certain kinds of persuasive techniques used by advertisers to make them buy the product.

When a child wants a teddy bear for birthday, they think that mom wants the same.

Deceptive sales tactics don’t work in people with high awareness

A group of psychologists designed a few successive experiments. In each of them the volunteers were shown various ads, some with more, some with less pushy messages and then asked how likely they would be to purchase the product.

“We aimed to discover the point, at which people recognize that they are being persuaded, and where does this recognition lead them to?” explained Elizabeth Minton, a former doctoral candidate and one of the co-authors of the research.

All experiments showed nearly similar results. In particular, ads containing obtrusive words (spoken, written, or even alluded somewhere in the background) sharply reduced the trust of people with a higher theory of mind. Such ads made them feel manipulated, lowered the interest in the product and intention to purchase it.

The same went for ads with reduced transparency, like where you are offered a free product but later (usually at the last page) asked to pay for its shipping and handling. People with lower levels of the ability, naturally, were a bit less skeptical and slightly more likely to remain interested.

It’s worth noting that after viewing persuasive videos the higher-level subjects were a little more willing to buy private items such as underwear than “publicly visible” ones like graphic T-shirts. This confirms the idea that the reviewed ability has social underlining: The more visible is the product is, the stronger your theory of mind seems to become.

The research, Minton concluded, raises the question of whether advertisers should be limited in their drive to uncontrollably apply aggressive sales methods to people with the undeveloped theory of mind.

Hard-sell advertising may mislead less skeptical people, while their more conscious counterparts could be deeply irritated by such harsh methods and become more reluctant to buy the advertised product.

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