THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MARKETING TECHNIQUES:
INFLUENCE OF THE PERCEIVED LEVEL OF STRESS ON
SUSCEPTIBILITY TO SOCIAL PROOF
by
Anaïk Huizing
The effectiveness of marketing techniques:
Influence of the perceived level of stress on susceptibility to
social proof
Master Thesis Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
ABSTRACT
People who perceive reduced self-control are more susceptible to various social influence techniques, but little is known about consumers’ reaction to social influences when they perceive stress. Present study aims to test the relationship between stress and susceptibility to one of these influence techniques, in particular social proof. Data is collected through an online survey during 7 days, from 110 randomly selected participants with an average age of 30 years. To analyze the data a Chi-Square test and an ANOVA analysis was done. Results confirm previous research because a direct relationship of both social proof and stress on willingness to donate was found. The extension that consumers who perceive a high level of stress are more susceptible to social proof and therefore more willing to donate, was not significantly found in relation to the amount of money donated, however there is a movement towards this relationship. Furthermore, it was significantly found that more people donated money when they were exposed to a social proof cue and perceived high levels of stress than when they perceived no stress. Therefore, more research is needed to further explore this relationship.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION... 5
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 7
Social proof effectiveness ... 7
Influence of stress on susceptibility to social proof ... 8
3. METHODOLOGY ... 11
Participants and design ... 11
Procedure ... 11 Independent variables ... 12 Stress ... 12 Social proof ... 12 Dependent variable ... 13 Willingness to donate ... 13 Control variables ... 13
Stress manipulation check ... 13
Life history theory ... 14
Dispositional attitude measure ... 14
Socioeconomic status ... 15
4. RESULTS ... 16
Manipulation check stress ... 16
Willingness to donate ... 16
Yes or no donation ... 16
Controlling for covariates ... 19
Auxiliary analysis ... 19
Gender ... 19
Age ... 20
5. DISCUSSION ... 22
Limitations and future research directions ... 23
REFERENCES ... 25
1. INTRODUCTION
People are continuously exposed to various forms of pressure in today’s demanding environment. In your personal life many forms of social pressure exist and career wise there is often much time pressure due to several deadlines, which can impact your decision quality (Saqib & Chan, 2015). These feelings of pressure can produce stress and the additional characteristics like nervosity, impatience or distraction (Cialdini, 2007). This often makes people feel less under control and uncertain about their actions. Research shows people have various reactions to stress or pressure like reduced control, uncertainty and spending money strategically (Durante & Laran, 2016; Fennis, Janssen & Vohs, 2009; Park et al., 2016). Stress could trigger risk taking but also feelings of lost control. Because of self-control depletion, due to various exposures to marketing requests, people's resistance to temptations weakens (Baumeister, 2002). When people feel a weakened sense of personal control or distraction, they are more susceptible to various forms of social influence (Fennis & Aarts, 2012; Fennis & Stroebe, 2016). Cialdini (2007) has indicated six widely used social influence principles: commitment and consistency, likability, authority, reciprocity, scarcity and social proof, the latter is highlighted in present study. Professionals who practice these influence techniques have shown to be more successful in compliance than without using them (Cialdini et al., 2010). You probably have seen advertising where they claimed that ‘many others bought this product’. The presence of these social proof cues should help individuals convince that the request is a good choice and trustworthy, because other people also liked the offer.
Because we feel stressed at many moments in our life, this could have much impact on how consumers are affected by social influence which we are exposed to daily. Therefore there is growing interest in the influence of stress on consumer decisions. People in general would like to feel in control over their actions and outcomes, so their natural tendency is to perform strategic behavior in response to stress to help them restore their control and reduce uncertainty (Durante & Laran, 2016). Social proof could serve to increase feelings of control and reduce uncertainty because people can use the actions of others to decide if their reaction is correct. Using this information about the majority could therefore be one of the possible strategic options to recover from feelings caused by stress. I propose that stress will amplify the relationship between social proof and compliance. Therefore, this research wants to answer the following research question:
There is a literature gap regarding this question. The proposed link between susceptibility to social proof and stress is a barely researched extension of the mainly researched idea that self-control depletion causes people to be more prone to social influences and that people have less self-control because of the exposure to many marketing techniques like, the door-in-face technique, consistency and authority obedience (Fennis & Aarts, 2012; Fennis, Janssen, Vohs, 2009). This research will be the first to focus on the impact of stress on the susceptibility to social influence techniques, in particular the social proof principle. A direct link between the effectiveness of the social proof principle when stress plays a role in decision making is not made yet. Furthermore, when this question is answered, it could have a variety of practical implications. When marketers know more about the effect of stress on consumers’ reactions to marketing efforts, this can result in a more effective approach and response of consumers. It also creates awareness among consumers how they can be influenced by marketing techniques when they are vulnerable. The results of this study can be meaningful to explore the role and use of stress in advertising.
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Social proof effectiveness
Vast literature about the influence of social proof cues in advertising explains that the effectiveness and success hinges on the idea that people like to conform and think behavior is appropriate when others do it, particularly many and similar others and in ambiguous context (Cialdini, 2007; Cialdini & Goldstein 2004; Cialdini et al., 2010; Guadagno et al., 2013). Social proof is an important cue for people to behave in a certain manner and is widely used in advertising. The effectiveness of this influence technique is reinforced by several other factors like having little information in ambiguous situations and feeling social pressure to be affiliate (Cialdini 2007; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). This research is particularly interested in the influence of stress on the effectiveness of social proof.
Social proof cues often use similarity in their social proof messages. It is argued that similarity increases a positive force towards compliance because of increased liking and the credibility (Silvia, 2005). Consequently, we usually see the ‘average’ person with similar values in TV commercials, so we can identify ourselves with them. It is proven that people behave like people similar to them when giving to charity and recycling towels in a hotel (Cialdini, 2007). A nice quote which implies the strength of similarity in social proof is: ‘Well, I’m three years old,
and Tommy is three years old. And Tommy can swim without a ring so that means I can too’
information is more difficult to obtain than consensus information (Fennis & Stroebe, 2016). So, uncertain people more frequently use the actions of others’ to decide their behavior (Cialdini, 2007). Research has shown that in times of emergency, when the situation is ambiguous and we do not know how to act, we sometimes do nothing just like everybody else (Cialdini, 2007). When people are less informed, heuristic cues have more influence on people's behavior (Wood, 2000), and learning from feedback is important for decision making (Starcke & Brand, 2016).
Cialdini and others (Cialdini, 2007; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004) note that the effectiveness of influence techniques leans on the idea of consumer automaticity and the mindlessness we have. The state of mindlessness can be created when people have to make multiple decisions or respond to multiple requests which decrease their self-control (Fennis, Janssen & Vohs, 2009). This state of inattention could make people more prone to heuristic processing which includes putting little effort in judging the merits of a message. When people have low ability to process information in a state of mindlessness, they process heuristically, which involves the use of simple cues and rules of thumbs to decide whether they should accept a request (Chaiken, 1980). Thus, the notion that people use behavior of others as a reference, especially in times of uncertainty and in a state of mindlessness leads to the following hypothesis:
H1: The principle of social proof positively affects compliance
Influence of stress on susceptibility to social proof
Since it was previously reasoned that social proof is highly effective in ambiguous and uncertain situations and when people are in a state of mindlessness, it is plausible to assume that stress impacts the susceptibility to social proof because stress often occurs in ambiguous situations and leads to psychologic reactions like anxiety, introversion, impatience, reduced control, uncertainty and distraction (Cialdini, 2007; Durante & Laran, 2016; Park et al., 2016).
stress and a reduced ability to function (Benight et al., 1999).
Research about reactions to stress shows various results. Stress can lead to avoiding action with passive responding (Landau et al., 2011) to prevent further harm, but it can also lead to action (Duhachek, 2005) and increase spending behavior. It is also suggested that stress induces self-control depletion (Botti & McGill, 2011; Park et al., 2016). When people cope with stress, it requires self-control because they constantly monitor threatening stimuli and suppress the wandering of attention (Park et al, 2016). Consequently, less self-control is available to manage their thoughts, emotions and behaviors (Park et al., 2016), which makes people more vulnerable for compliance due to lack of resources to refuse the request (Fennis, Janssen & Vohs, 2009). This lowered self-control can cause people to use their resources to restore a sense of control over their environment (Durante & Laran, 2016). People tend to save money to reduce unpredictability on the outcomes but also spend more money strategically to help them function in daily life and reduce uncertainty. The notion that stressed people spend their money strategically to restore their control could be a reason for them to turn to others for information for the best choice. As highlighted before, social proof is often used in situations of uncertainty and ambiguity and uses the majority and similarity effect, because knowing the actions of many similar people can reduce uncertainty. Since stress causes uncertainty and people would like to reduce this (Durante & Laran, 2016), social proof can be even more attractive to consumers in times of stress. We use the tendency to see our behavior as appropriate when others do it and this makes us think we make fewer mistakes by looking at social evidence (Cialdini, 2007). Thus, duplicating the actions of others could be the right option to make fewer mistakes in our decisions and reduce uncertainty which was caused by stress.
and distracted situations, when less information is available, social proof information could be even more effective and people follow the wisdom of the crowd. Overall, the tendency of stressed people to restore a sense of control by spending money strategically (Durante & Laran, 2016) and the preference for easy to process heuristic cues (Chaiken, 1980) implies that when people perceive stress, they are more susceptible to social proof cues.
Hence, the expectations will be that stress moderates the impact of social proof on compliance. More specifically, higher stress levels will strengthen the relationship between social proof and the compliance request. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H2: If people perceive high levels of stress they are more willing to comply H3: Stress amplifies the positive effect of social proof on compliance
The previously argued hypotheses can be conceptualized in the following conceptual framework representing the proposed relationships (figure 1).
3. METHODOLOGY
Participants and design
A total of 110 randomly selected English speaking participants (54 male, 56 female; Mage = 29.90 years, SD = 12.05) were recruited online and via social connections to participate in an
online experimental study. 96 people were Dutch and 14 from other countries. They participated voluntarily in a 2 (social proof vs. no social proof) x 2 (high stress vs. low stress) between-subjects factorial design.
Procedure
The participants were asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire which consisted of several unrelated studies issued by different researchers. The participants were approached on Facebook, via personal networks and networks of others, where the link to the online questionnaire was spread. Participants were randomly allocated to one of the four experimental conditions when they started the questionnaire. In each of the four experimental conditions, data from at least twenty-five participants was collected. Only English speaking people could participate and they were approached in a time span of 1 week.
represented general attitudes towards issues and objects. At last, the socioeconomic status scale (Griskevicius, Tybur et al., 2011; Griskevicius, Delton et al., 2011) addressed the participant's socioeconomic situation. At the end of the questionnaire participants were reminded that all their data remains confidential and were thanked for their participation. Participants were asked whether they were interested in a debriefing of the research and results once the research was done. They could leave their email address and the results would be send to them afterwards. The questionnaire lasted approximately 15 minutes.
Independent variables
Stress
The level of perceived stress was manipulated with a task adopted from Dedovic et al. (2005), where all participants had to answer several mathematical questions. Participants in the condition of stress were exposed to time pressure and had to answer these questions within a time limit of 10 seconds. Once the question was shown, a clock on the screen was counting backwards from 10 to 0. If the answer was given or if the time limit was reached, the next question was shown. After each question participants were told if their answer was correct or incorrect, because feedback can increase stress (Dedovic et al., 2005). In contrast, the participants in the neutral stress condition had to complete the same task without a time limit and without feedback. It is argued that time pressure can change individual behavior and rises the stress level as well as constrains people’s cognitive resources (De Paola & Gioia, 2016; Ordóñez & Benson, 1997). In both conditions there were 2 example questions and 15 actual questions The mathematical questions were identical in both conditions, for example ‘2 + 9 - 7 = ?’, ‘3 * 12 – 29 = ?’ and ’87 – 7 * 2 – 69 = ?’, with answers between 0 – 9 (see appendix for full overview).
Social proof
proof from many others preferably similar to themselves. Furthermore it is said that a firm way to manipulate social proof is information provision about the majority of a reference group (Goldstein, Cialdini & Griskevicius, 2008). Thus, the manipulation with social proof included these conditions to maximize the effectiveness. The words ‘many people’ and ‘similar background as you’ refer to the majority and similarity conditions. Participants had no further information about the fundraiser campaign which increased uncertainty. The online environment should not have influenced the effect of social proof since research of Guadagno et al. (2013) showed that people also use social proof in an online environment where they are anonymous.
Dependent variable
Willingness to donate
As Cialdini & Goldstein (2004) mentioned, compliance can be measured as the response someone has to your request. Once the participants performed the mathematical task, and read the story with or without the social proof heuristic, the following request was asked to the participants: ‘How many euros do you want to donate?’ Participants could fill in the amount of their choice. Compliance was measured as the amount of money donated. Participants did not actually have to donate the money, but this was not mentioned to increase the sincerity of the participants’ answers. The request was proposed to the participants immediately after the manipulations of stress and social proof was done, otherwise the perceived stress was reduced and the results were not reliable.
Control variables
To control for possible confounding effects, participants were asked to fill in several questions about their feelings, childhood, attitudes towards different issues and their socioeconomic status. This was done to control for possible differences in coping with stress and other issues upfront so that the results would not be biased.
Stress manipulation check
When participants felt no stress while it should be induced, or conversely, it will impact the results. The mean scores on 6 items that measured the feelings concerning the task on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), were calculated and represented the level of stress. Example items are: ‘I found the task stressful’, ‘I found the task easy’ (reversed item) and ‘I found the task difficult’ (see appendix for full overview). A high score on this scale means participants perceived high levels of stress and a low score means less stress was felt.
Life history theory
According to (Moschis, 2007) a person's life history can create different reactions to stress, therefore the life history theory from Figueredo et al. (2014) was used to control for this. This scale consisted of 20 items about your personal relationships as well as how you cope with different situations. This questionnaire measured the scale with 19 items, because the question ‘I often give emotional support and practical help to my blood relatives’ was by mistake not included. A 7-point Likert scale was used ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The mean scores on these items were calculated and represented the relationships of the participants. A high average score means you perform well on self-assessment, relationship maintenance, emotional intelligence and have a high general mental ability, while a low score means you perform less on these measures. Example items are: ‘I don’t give up until I solve my problems’, ‘While growing up, I had a close and warm relationship with my biological mother’ and ‘I am often in social contact with my friends’ (see appendix for full overview).
Dispositional attitude measure
high score means you have a general positive attitude towards objects and a low score represents a negative general attitude.
Socioeconomic status
4. RESULTS
Manipulation check stress
First of all,to test whether the level of stress was manipulated right and differed between the conditions, a manipulation check was done. An ANOVA showed there was a significant
difference (F(1,108) = 22.54, p < 0.001) between the low stress group (M = 3.43, SD = 1.15) and the high stress group (M = 4.44, SD = 1.06). Thus, we can assume that the manipulation of stress was done properly and the analysis can continue.
Willingness to donate
Yes or no donation
A Chi-Square test for three categorical variables (no social proof vs. social proof, donation yes vs. no donation and low stress vs. high stress), was done to test for the notion that more people are willing to donate money when there is a social proof cue present, particularly when they perceive high levels of stress. This is tested first because it was found that many people donated nothing at all (table 1).
TABLE 1
Donation percentages per condition
Donation: No Donation: Yes
Low stress No social proof 88.9% 11.1%
Social proof 70.0% 30.0%
High stress No social proof 88.0% 12.0%
Social proof 50.0% 50.0%
stress are more influenced by the social proof cue. Among the people who perceived high levels of stress there is evidence of a significant association between social proof and willingness to donate, X² (1) = 8.75, p = 0.003. Among people who perceived low levels of stress, there is no significant evidence of a relationship between social proof and willingness to donate, X² (1) = 3.05, p = 0.081. Thus, when controlling for the stress level, the relationship between the presence of social proof and willingness to donate is significant for the people within the high stress condition, and not within the low stress condition. In conclusion, the level of stress appears to impact the relation between social proof and willingness to donate, where a combination of a high stress level and social proof resulted in most donations.
Notably, the results of this test show something interesting, more people donated money when there was only social proof, in comparison when there was only stress. When there was no social proof and no stress, just as many people donated money as when there was no social proof but high stress. This shows that the direct effect of social proof on making donations appears to be stronger than the direct effect of stress alone, and stress seems to have very little direct effect.
Amount of donation
It is now indicated that the level of stress seems to impact the willingness to donate something other than zero euros when social proof is present. A 2 (low stress vs. high stress) x 2 (social proof vs. no social proof) ANOVA on the amount of euros donated was done to test the hypothesis that people are susceptible to donate more money when there is a social proof cue, particularly when the level of perceived stress is high. This analysis showed that the predicted moderating effect of stress was not statistically found.
FIGURE 2
Average amount of money donated as a function of stress and social proof
Furthermore, the main effects did align with earlier findings, where the main effect of social proof on compliance was significantly positive with F(1,106) = 5.49, p = 0.02. This main effect indicates that when a social proof cue message was present, people were willing to donate more money (M = 2.33, SD = 3.91) than in the control group without a social proof message (M = 0.79, SD = 3.15). Furthermore, the main effect of stress on compliance reached a significant positive effect (F(1,106) = 4.47, p = 0.04). With the presence of stress people are willing to donate more (M = 2.36, SD = 4.62) compared to the group without perceived stress (M = 0.90,
SD = 2.20). This confirms the hypothesis and findings that people who are stressed are likely to
Controlling for covariates
To control for possible influence of covariates on the results, the life history scale (LHT), dispositional negativity scale (DNS) and socioeconomic status scale (SES) were included as covariates in the analysis. The mean scores of the scales were included after a reliability analysis showed acceptance (αlht = 0.74, αdns = 0.68, αses = 0.85). The ANCOVA test showed that the LHT (F(1, 103) = 0.48, p = 0.49), DNS (F(1,103) = 0.12, p = 0.73) and SES (F(1,103) = 0.23, p = 0.64) did not significantly predict the results. When we take these covariates into account, the test is still significant for the main effect of stress on donations (F(1,103) = 4.65, p = 0.03) and the main effect of social proof on donations (F(1,103) = 4.47, p = 0.04). Furthermore, the moderating effect of stress on susceptibility to social proof remains insignificant with F(1,103) = 1.95, p = 0.17.
Auxiliary Analysis
Some additional analyses are done to check whether there are differences in the results concerning gender and age.
Gender
An ANOVA on the willingness to donate is done to check whether there are gender differences between manipulations. An ANOVA showed there is no significant main effect of gender on willingness to donate (F(1,106) = 0.00, p = 0.97). Males and females donated on average almost the same amount of money (Mmale = 1.67, SD = 3.73, Mfemale = 1.54, SD = 3.58).
An ANOVA showed there are no significant gender difference in susceptibility to social proof (F(1,106) = 3.16, p = 0.08), although it is marginally significant. The means show a movement towards more susceptibility to social proof for males compared to females (figure 3). When social proof is absent, males donated less than females (Mmale = 0.12, SD = 0.45, Mfemale = 1.36, SD = 4.23), but when a social proof cue is present, males donated much more than they did before while females only slightly donated more (Mmale = 2.90, SD = 4.66, Mfemale = 1.71,
FIGURE 3
Average amount of money donated as a function of social proof and gender
There is no significant difference in response to stress on willingness to donate between gender (F(1,106) = 1.13, p = 0.29). Means showed that males are slightly more influenced. In a situation of low stress, males donated less than females (Mmale = 0.48, SD = 1.29, Mfemale = 1.22, SD = 2.68), but when stress was added, males donated quite more than they did before and also more than females (Mmale = 2.69, SD = 4.74, Mfemale = 1.96, SD = 4.54).
Age
The average age of all respondents is 29.90 years (SD = 12.05). Based on a median split, with a median of 25, an ANOVA showed there is no significant difference in willingness to donate (F(1,108) = 0.00, p = 1.00) between the age groups. On average they donated the same amount of money (M<25 = 1.60, SD = 3.45, M25+ = 1.60, SD = 3.81).
social proof. When there is no social proof, the age group under 25 donated less money than the group of 25 and older (M<25 = 0.25, SD = 0.73, M25+ = 1.25, SD = 4.22), but when there is social proof present, the age group under 25 donated more than the 25 and older group (M<25 = 2.85,
SD = 4.42, M25+ = 1.91, SD = 3.46)
5. DISCUSSION
The present research examined the role of consumers’ perceived level of stress in relation to the susceptibility to social influence. It was proposed that increasing a person's level of stress would increase susceptibility to social proof, which leads to people donating money. The assumptions were tested by means of an experiment, where manipulations were used to vary the level of stress and the presence of a social proof cue. The findings supported the proposals and a significant positive main effect for both level of stress and social proof on willingness to donate was found. Indicating that more people donated money and donated more when they saw a social proof cue compared to no social proof cue. The group of people with high perceived levels of stress did not donate significantly more often than the group without stress, but they were willing to donate significantly more money. The findings of the hypothesized interaction between the presence of stress and susceptibility to social proof were not significant, in relation to the amount of euros donated. However, the mean scores did show movement towards people donating more money when they were stressed and exposed to social proof. Interestingly, the results did show a significant association between exposure to social proof and how often was donated within the high stress condition. Thus, participants who perceived high stress and saw a social proof cue were more willing to donate. In conclusion, the group of people who saw a social proof cue donated significantly more often and showed a movement towards donating more money when they were in a condition of stress compared to no stress. This implies that further research is interesting to explore this relationship.
Why stress did not amplify susceptibility to social proof significantly according to the amount of euros donated, could be because only 29 people donated, where one high amount in a condition without stress or social proof could have impacted the means a lot. Moreover, it was argued by Durante & Laran (2016) that not everyone experiences low control when they are stressed, so those people had no need to restore their control with spending more money strategically. A reason for the fact that most people spend nothing, could be that the request was not attracting enough since people did not receive anything. Research showed that stress increases peoples need to receive potential and immediate rewards (Starcke & Brand, 2016).
is interesting to see that the results show the predicted main effect that stress causes people to increase their spending since the relation between stress and spending behavior is quite new and not yet thoroughly examined. This is interesting knowledge in today’s stressful environment. However, it was not significantly found that the group of people with stress donated more often, but this is probably due to the low amount of people donating something at all. The finding of spending more in times of stress is in contrast to the finding of Durante & Laran (2016) that people tend to save money. Moreover, this research found results moving into the hypothesized interaction which highly implies that stress makes people more susceptible for social proof, resulting in increased spending behavior, which is an interaction which was not previously researched. When this is further researched, it can extend research that not only self-control depletion but also stress causes more susceptibility to social influences. The proposed interaction effect might give reason to think that people who perceive stress indeed feel less control and feel like the best way to recover this is with certainty by following the wisdom of the crowd. This is in line with the notion of Durante & Laran (2016) that people would choose strategic to restore their lowered self-control. When this is clear, marketers could really use these insights since in today's environment people make many decisions under conditions of stress.
Limitations and future research directions
In this study stress was manipulated in an online environment inducing time pressure, which makes the results not generalizable to other forms of pressure. Because the study was online, participants could answer the questionnaire at their preferred place and time. However, people can experience many forms of pressure, especially in a shopping environment, therefore it could be wise to test if a different environment and other forms of pressure results in similar reactions to spending behavior and social influences. Even though the real shopping environment should be further tested, this study is good for knowing what time pressure does when people are in their own shopping environment, which is also interesting in a world where people increasingly shop online.
conducted in different environments to further explore their impact.
Moreover, the ultimate compliance request was operated as how much money people wanted to donate to charity, which was probably a less interesting offer than when people could get something in return. Because this resulted in most people donating nothing, differences in amounts impacted the results more. Therefore it could be wise to test with different compliance requests and larger samples in the future.
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Wood, W. (2000). Attitude change: Persuasion and social Influence. Annual Reviews
APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE Welcome!
Dear participant, thank you very much for participating in this research. This is a short survey (15-20 minutes) which consists of 3 parts of short unrelated studies issued by different
researchers.
The survey is being administered as part of a research project in the Department of Marketing at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
Your participation in this study will remain confidential and there will be no attempt to link your responses and your identity.
Please read all instructions carefully.
Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary, and you may withdraw at any time by closing the survey platform.
Part 1
Please fill in some short questions about your demographics.
What is your gender? o Male
o Female o Neutral
What is your age?
Currently I am: … o Studying
o Working
o Looking for a job o Not applicable
What is your nationality? o Dutch
o Other, namely
What is your current marital status? o Single
o In a relationship
Part 2
The second part of this survey consists of some mathematical tasks.
High stress condition
The Mental Game
You will now be presented with a set of quantitative reasoning questions based on arithmetic tasks such as addition (+), substraction (-), multiplication (*), and division (/).
There is one correct answer for each question. The correct answer is a number between 0 and 9.
You will have 10 seconds to answer each question.
We are interested in the response that you can arrive at through mental calculation alone. As such, please complete these without the use of a pencil and paper or a calculator.
For each question, select the option that you think is the correct answer.
At the end of each question, you will be given feedback telling you whether your response was correct or incorrect.
Also at the end of the game, you will be given feedback about how you performed compared to other participants.
Example Q1: 4 - 1 + 2 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Timing clock: 10 seconds Correct/Incorrect
Another Example Q2: 7 + 2 * 1 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Please continue when you are ready to start the Mental Game. Q1 2 + 9 - 7 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q9 8 * 6 / 3 - 11 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q2 57 - 59 + 6 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q10 19 - 37 + 9 + 14 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q3 3 * 12 - 29 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q11 44 - 22 / 2 - 20 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q4 4 * 10 / 5 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q12 87 - 7 * 2 - 69 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q5 12 * 12 / 8 - 9 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q13 43 - 25 - 9 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q6 28+ 42 / 7 -33 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q14 39 - 26 - 80 / 16 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q7 5 + 32 - 44 + 7 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q15 8 * 9 / 6 - 11 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q8 7 - 34 / 2 + 12 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Low stress condition
The Mental Game
You will now be presented with a set of quantitative reasoning questions based on arithmetic tasks such as addition (+), substraction (-), multiplication (*), and division (/).
There is one correct answer for each question. The correct answer is a number between 0 and 9.
We are interested in the response that you can arrive at through mental calculation alone. As such, please complete these without the use of a pencil and paper or a calculator.
For each question, select the option that you think is the correct answer.
Example Q1: 4 - 1 + 2 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Another Example Q2: 7 + 2 * 1 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Please continue when you are ready to start the Mental Game.
Q1 2 + 9 - 7 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q9 8 * 6 / 3 - 11 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q2 57 - 59 + 6 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q10 19 - 37 + 9 + 14 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q3 3 * 12 - 29 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q11 44 - 22 / 2 - 20 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q4 4 * 10 / 5 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q12 87 - 7 * 2 - 69 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q5 12 * 12 / 8 - 9 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q13 43 - 25 - 9 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q6 28+ 42 / 7 -33 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q14 39 - 26 - 80 / 16 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q7 5 + 32 - 44 + 7 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q15 8 * 9 / 6 - 11 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q8 7 - 34 / 2 + 12 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Social proof condition
Then something different, we are raising money for the WWF. Based on the demographics you filled in, I see that many people with a similar background as you have already donated
something. Would you maybe also want to do a donation? Every amount is welcome! Thank you very much for your cooperation!
How many euros do you want to donate?
No social proof condition
Then something different, we are raising money for the WWF. Would you therefore maybe want to do a donation? Every amount is welcome! Thank you very much for your cooperation!
Part 3
This last part consists of some questions about your characteristics
Please indicate the extent of agreement with the following statements, ranging from 1-7, whereas 1 means "strongly disagree" and 9 means "strongly agree".
Strongly disagree 1 Somewhat disagree 2 Slightly disagree 3 Don't know/not applicable 4 Slightly agree 5 Somewhat agree 6 Strongly agree 7
I can often tell how things will turn out
o o o o o o o
I try to understand how I got into a situation to figure out how to handle it
o o o o o o o
I often find the bright side to a bad situation
o o o o o o o
I don’t give up until I solve my problems
o o o o o o o
I often make plans in advance
o o o o o o o
I avoid taking risks o o o o o o o
While growing up, I had a close and warm relationship with my biological mother
o o o o o o o
While growing up, I had a close and warm relationship with my biological father
o o o o o o o
I have close and warm relationship with my own children
o o o o o o o
I have a close and warm romantic relationship with my sexual partner
o o o o o o o
I would rather have one than several sexual relationships at a time
I have to be closely attached to someone before I am comfortable having sex with them
o o o o o o o
I am often in social contact with my blood relatives
o o o o o o o
I often get emotional support and practical help from my blood relatives
o o o o o o o
I am often in social contact with my friends
o o o o o o o
I often get emotional support and practical help from my friends
o o o o o o o
I often give emotional support and practical help to my friends o o o o o o o I am closely connected to and involved in my community o o o o o o o I am closely connected to and involved in my religion o o o o o o o
Please indicate the extent of agreement with the following statements, ranging from 1-7, whereas 1 means "extremely unfavorable" and 7 means "extremely favorable".
Politics o o o o o o o Public speaking o o o o o o o Receiving criticism o o o o o o o Rugby o o o o o o o Soccer o o o o o o o Statistics o o o o o o o Japan o o o o o o o Taxes o o o o o o o Taxidermy (preserve animal bodies) o o o o o o o
Please indicate the extent of agreement with the following statements, ranging from 1-9, whereas 1 means "totally disagree" and 9 means "totally agree".
Totally disagree 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Totally
agree 9
My family usually had enough money for things when I was growing up
o o o o o o o o o
I grew up in a relatively wealthy neighborhood
o o o o o o o o o
I felt relatively wealthy compared to the other kids in my school
o o o o o o o o o
I have enough money to buy things I want
o o o o o o o o o
I don’t need to worry too much about paying my bills
o o o o o o o o o
I speak fluently Czechoslovak language
o o o o o o o o o
I don’t think I’ll have to worry about money too much in the future
This is the end of the survey.
Thank you very much for your participation!
Are you curious about the results of this research? If you are, please leave your email address here and I will send you the results afterwards. Your email address will only be used for this purpose and will be treated confidentially.
o No thanks
o Yes please, my email address is
Master thesis - Anaïk Huizing
The effectiveness of marketing techniques:
Agenda
- Introduction
-
The idea
- Research framework
-
What does literature say?
-
Stress, social proof & conceptual model
- Methodology
-
Participants, design, procedure
- Results
- Discussion
-
Conclusions
The idea
- Increasing pressure in today’s world
-
Causes stress and characteristics
-
Less self-control, uncertainty and distraction
- Less self-control causes susceptibility to social influences
Research question:
What does the literature say?
Social proof
is effective, because:
-
People conform
-
Majority
-
Similarity
-
Uncertainty
-
Consumer automaticity and mindlessness
- Easy to process heuristic cues
Stress
occurs when:
-
Ability to cope with demand is challenged
-
Situation is uncontrollable and uncertain
What happens when a person feels stress?
-
Lower self-control, uncertainty
-
Passive and active reactions
Conceptual model
Stress
Time pressureSocial proof
Compliance
Willingness to donateSocial proof + stress
All together
●
Stress causes uncertainty
Social proof is a tool to reduce uncertainty
-
Proof of many people
-
Proof of similar people
●
Stress distracts people, less systematic decision
making
Social proof is a tool easy to process
Method
-
110 participants
-
Average Age: 30
-
96 Dutch, 14 various countries
-
Recruited online / personal networks
-
1 week
-
Online questionnaire of 15 minutes
-
Experimental research
-
2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design
-
Independent variables
-
Stress
-
Social proof
-
Dependent variable
-
Willingness to donate
-
Control variables
-
Stress manipulation check
-
Life history scale
Method
Stress
Social proof
Willingness to donate
2 + 9 - 7 = ?; 3 * 12 - 29 = ?
Then something different, we are raising money for the WWF. Based on
the demographics you filled in, I see that many people with a similar
background as you have already donated something. Would you maybe
also want to do a donation? Every amount is welcome! Thank you very
much for your cooperation!
Results
Willingness to donate - Yes or no donation
Association between social proof & willingness to donate:
High levels of stress: X² (1) = 8.75, p = 0.003.
Low levels of stress: X² (1) = 3.05, p = 0.081.
Donation percentages per condition
Donation: No
Donation: Yes
Low stress
No social proof
88.9%
11.1%
Social proof
70.0%
30.0%
Results
Willingness to donate amount of donation
Direct relations
Social proof
- donations: F(1,106) = 5.49,
p
= 0.02
Stress
- donations: F(1,106) = 4.47,
p
= 0.04
Average amount of money donated as
a function of stress and social proof
Results
No significant moderating effect:
F(1,106) = 1.62,
p
= 0.21
●
However, means point towards predicted effect
Mean
Std. Deviation
Low stress
No social proof
0.52
1.99
Social proof
1.23
2.36
High stress
No social proof
1.10
4.10
Conclusions
-
Social proof positively affects willingness to donate
-
Stress positively affects willingness to donate
-
Stress amplifies susceptibility to social proof
Is the relationship on willingness to donate proven?
Donation yes/no
Amount of donation
Social proof
Yes
Yes
Stress
No
Yes
Stress
Social proof Compliance
