title: Selling ideas, attitudes, and behaviors.
abstract: Advertisers are adept at changing our attitudes and purchasing behaviors, but we rarely notice the effects. This plenary talk at the eighth annual Midwest Rural Agricultural Safety and Health Forum, November 2009, focused on the psychology of advertising and how advertising is designed to work outside of our conscious awareness. Several psychological "tricks" are used to influence us, with the goal being to get us to change our behaviors but to think that it was our idea all along. These tricks include using emotional appeals and persuasion techniques that rely on biases in human problem solving. This power can be used for social marketing, the use of these techniques to promote social well-being, rather than simply for commercial purposes. Understanding how advertising works therefore allows us to use this power to effect positive changes in society.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-3180, USA. dgentile@iastate.edu
authors.forename: Douglas A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Gentile
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising / Q000379:methods*; D001364:Awareness; D032763:Behavior Control / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D003243:Consciousness; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008389:Marketing of Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D015146:Midwestern United States; D040241:Social Marketing