Just imagine how great it would be if you knew exactly what people were thinking. What they wanted, how they felt, or how exactly they felt about you or your product. Or what if you could control their minds? Can't you see yourself making people do what ever you want? Life would be so easy... Unfortunately for us mind reading and mind control haven’t been quite perfected yet. That being said a nice enough consolation prize would the ability to control how they evaluate you or your products. This way you’d know exactly what information to put in front of them, right?
Sound too good to be true? Not according to some of the professors at Columbia University… Lets get some basic information down first then we’ll get to the cool stuff…
There are two types of evaluative judgments (among others) that someone will use in making a decision, they are:
1. Central cues or substantive judgments pertain to the core or essence of the person or product to be evaluated (validity of claims, the actual functionality of the attributes, verifiable experience, etc…).
2. Peripheral cues or affective judgments pertain to the person’s affective response to the target (the feelings aroused during ad exposure or interaction with the sales person, the aesthetic of the products design, the personality of the consultant, etc…)
Now, along with these types of judgments, Professor Tory Higgins of Columbia defines two types of goals that an individual is holding mentally when making their decision:
1. Ideal based goals (aspirations, hopes, wishes) These are based on subjective/affective (peripheral cues) and pertain to aesthetics, personality types, feelings aroused, etc.. In a natural setting whether or not someone has experiential drives (feel good, have an experience) in mind is what determines their usage of Ideal based goals to evaluate the deciding information. Ideal types of goals tapped into the promotion system which performs regulation of nurturing needs and relies on approach strategies. As such these types are more persuaded by positive outcome messages and are more willing to explore and take risks to maximize gain.
2. Ought based goals (obligations, duties and responsibilities). These are based on substance (central cues) and pertain to function, attributes, experience etc. in decision-making. In a naturally occurring setting whether or not someone has readily accessible instrumental motives is what determines whether or not they’ll be making decisions through Ought based goals. Their effect is to tap into an individual's prevention system which performs regulation of their security needs making them rely heavily on avoidance strategies and leaving them less willing to accept risks. These types of goals are more persuaded by negative outcome messages.
Although there are many distinctions available today in goal theory, these two separate on a fundamental level. Ideal goals refer to people's hopes, wishes, and aspirations whereas Ought goals refer to people's obligations, duties and responsibilities.
This information is great to know, however in most cases it's not necessarily easy to elicit this information prior to marketing to somebody. Think of a situation where you're writing a website. You don't know who's going to be coming to the website and obviously you won't have the ability to talk to them beforehand. So how do you know how to present your material to them? Here in lies the conundrum…
We'll thankfully the good folks over at Columbia University figured out how to solve this. In a number of studies they primed (The act of placing certain information into someone’s working memory by having them read/watch particular information or conjuring up that information in their mind through conversation or questioning) individuals prior to engaging them in a consumer oriented scenario with either Ought or Ideal goals. Their thoughts were that if one or the other was more accessible to the consumer’s explicit memory that they would respond better to either the substantive or affective messages respectively. I realize this is quite a bit of information, but I will sum it up into a nice neat package at the end…. Promise.
For the advanced communicators out there this may sound all too familiar. Priming is a relatively well-known method and its effects have been well-documented in the past. However, traditionally held views focused specifically on information processing at the central/systematic level or the peripheral/heuristic level and this is mainly governed by their desired level of accuracy of information, their present mood and/or the level of their arousal. Basically you were at the whim of their excitement or moods… How these levels are set is subject matter for another article… This view surrounding Ideal/Ought goals priming differs from traditional priming theory in that they hope to influence the people REGARDLESS of motivation for accuracy, arousal or mood.
So what do you think happened? Well obviously it worked extremely well otherwise I wouldn't be here citing the study. They were able to successfully prime the subjects with whatever goal system they wanted and as a result were able to write and maximize the effectiveness of their messages. So what does this mean for you and me?
Evaluate your product… evaluate you… Be brutally honest. Does your product simply have function (a phone plan or cable service)? Or are there aesthetic or subjective qualities worthy of note (how it looks or sounds)? Are you possibly a bit weak in your credentials and would like to shy away from that if possible? Or are you a PhD with 20 years of experience?
If you determine that your strong suit is credential/attribute based, prime the people for Ideal based goal thinking. If your strong suit is aesthetic, feeling based affective attributes, prime them for Ought based goal thinking. How to prime them you ask? That’s an article for another time… stay tuned.
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