When Shame can be a Benefit - The Effect of Shame on Advertisement Processing

Abstract

It is common to find messages inducing shame among the audience in the advertising context. Advertisement context, such as programs or magazine articles preceding advertisements, may cause certain negative affective reactions (Yi 1990a). Not only programs, but also social marketing campaigns often use negative appeals as a way of communication. Recently the use of social marketing is increasing and such social marketing induces shame among consumers intentionally (Agrawal and Duhachek 2010; Brennan and Binney 2010). If such shame-inducing messages affect cognitive processes among consumers, these messages may affect a subsequent processing of target advertisements. It is thus meaningful to investigate what effects the shame-inducing messages can bring on to the processing of subsequent advertisements and what mechanisms underlie such effects. Early research shows somewhat inconsistent findings regarding how people behave when feeling shame. Prior research suggests that people show either avoidance behaviors or approach behaviors (Frijda et al. 1989; de Hooge et al. 2010; Scherer and Wallbott 1994; Tangney, Miller, Flicker and Barlow 1996). However, not many researchers have investigated under what condition people take certain actions and especially why they do so. My study suggests a possible underlying motive in an advertising context, when people process an ad after feeling incidental shame induced by the preceding context. Watching advertisements is not helpful in undoing or redoing the shameful event. Therefore people would show withdrawal tendencies because the approach tendency is not possible. I hypothesize that such withdrawal tendency is motivated by people's attempt to signal the positive self to others that would help them to get rid of self from the shameful event. I expect that signaling motive would mediate the effect. Moreover, the effect would be stronger for those who are sensitive to self-presentation, because shame is highly correlated with self-presentation (Tracy and Robins 2004). That is, high self-monitors would process advertisement more rigorously compared with low self-monitors. An experiment was conducted with 100 university students. Respondents in the shame condition read a shame-inducing scenario before processing 4 different advertisements. Those in the control condition processed the same advertisements, but the scenario they read did not induce shame. Respondents in both conditions answered questions about motivations they were currently feeling. The results show that respondents in the shame condition recalled advertisements significantly better than those in the control condition and only the protect motive mediated the effect. Furthermore, shame had a stronger impact on recall for high self-monitors than for low self-monitors. My result supports the hypothesis that people who feel shame and process unrelated advertisements show withdrawal tendencies. Also my study showed the effect was mediated by signaling motive. Moreover, the influence of shame is stronger for those who are highly sensitive to social cues and their self-presentation to others, the influence of shame is more powerful.

다양한 광고상황은 소비자로 하여금 특정 감정적 상태를 느끼게 한다. 각종 TV 프로그램이나 공익광고 등을 통해 소비자는 부정적인 감정상태가 유발될 수 있다. 특히 갈수록 증가하고 있는 공익광고 등은 수치심이라는 특정 감정을 느끼게 하여 그 메시지 전달 효과를 높이고 있다. 이처럼 다양한 광고 상황을 통해 소비자가 부정적인 감정, 특히 수치심을 느꼈을 때 뒤이은 광고 처리에 어떠한 인지적인 영향을 미칠 수 있는지에 대한 연구는 많이 되어 있지 않다. 본 연구는 수치심이 뒤이은 광고 처리에 어떠한 인지적 영향을 미치며 왜 그러한 영향이 나타나는지에 대해 연구하였다. 기존 연구에 따르면 부정적인 감정은 메시지 정보처리를 더 정교화 시킨다고 한다. 수치심은 대표적인 부정적인 감정 중의 하나이며 사람들이 피하고 싶어 하는 감정 중의 하나이다. 따라서 수치심을 느끼는 사람들이 광고를 보았을 때, 수치심을 느끼지 않은 사람들보다 광고 회상을 더 잘할 것이다. 하지만 이런 수치심에 의해 소비자들이 광고 회상을 더 잘하는 그 이유는 일반적인 부정적 감정에 대한 연구만으로는 부족하다. 수치심은 강한 자의식적인 감정이며, 수치심은 자기 자신에 대한 인식을 바탕으로 느껴지게 되는 감정이다. 이를 바탕으로 본 연구에서 소비자들이 수치심을 느꼈을 때 광고 회상을 더 잘하게 되는 매개 변인으로 자기과시동기를 측정하였다. 또한 본 연구에서는 Self-monitoring 수준이 높은 소비자일수록 낮은 사람보다 광고 회상을 더 잘하는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 타인에게 비쳐지는 자신의 모습에 민감한 소비자일수록 자의식적인 감정인 수치심의 영향을 더 크게 받기 때문이라고 볼 수 있다.