Fear-Oriented Political Ads Have Hidden Costs, Say Neurometrics Researchers

A summary report describing this study and its findings is available here.

SAN FRANCISCO AND WASHINGTON DC - One of the oldest maxims of political campaigning is that "negative advertising works."

But a new study conducted by Lucid Systems and sponsored by the National Security Network, a non-profit foreign policy advocacy group, has found that, inside the brain, fear-oriented negative advertising may be inflicting more damage on the candidate sending the fear-based message than on the candidate receiving it.

During September and October 2008, 30 study participants from across the political spectrum watched hope-oriented and fear-oriented ads from the two Presidential campaigns. Half the participants saw ads about Obama -- hope-oriented, pro-Obama ads created by the Obama campaign and fear-oriented, anti-Obama ads created by the McCain campaign. The other half saw ads about McCain -- hope-oriented, pro-McCain ads created by the McCain campaign and fear-oriented, anti-McCain ads created by the Obama campaign. Each group included a mix of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

Before and after watching the ads, participants performed a simple image identification task, in which they viewed rapidly-presented pictures of Obama, McCain, and other men who looked somewhat like the two candidates. The researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure how the participants' brains reacted when they saw the pictures of the candidates.

What the researchers found was surprising. After viewing both hope-oriented and fear-oriented ads about one of the candidates, the participants were more attentive to that candidate, and more positively oriented toward that candidate, than they had been before seeing the ads, even when the candidate was not their preferred choice. In contrast, they were less attentive, and more negatively oriented toward the candidate who delivered the fear-oriented ads, even when that candidate was their preferred choice.

"The image identification task captures how people pre-consciously process incoming information," says Lucid CEO and project leader Steve Genco. "This study tells us that after viewing a fear-oriented ad, people may be a little less likely to pay attention to the candidate who sponsored the ad, and when they do pay attention, they may bring a little more negative attitude to the encounter. The effect of each exposure may be below conscious awareness, but over time, if a candidate is consistently offering a fear-oriented message, people may find their conscious preferences shifting to the other candidate."

The results showed that fear-oriented messaging was counter-productive in two ways -- it hurt the candidate delivering the message and it was easily neutralized by the other candidate's more hope-oriented counter-messages. "We thought the results were particularly compelling because they worked for both candidates," says Genco. "When Obama attacked McCain, we saw the same effect as when McCain attacked Obama, even among Obama supporters."

Lucid Systems is an early leader in the emerging field of neuroscience-based political research. Their work has been featured on ABC's Good Morning America and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360°.