The key to election success, hacking your serotonin.
The key to election success, hacking your serotonin.
By Philip Ingram MBE
As the general election campaigns build, what techniques are the political parties likely to use in order to persuade you, the voter, to back them? In 2017 the Conservative Party took a catch phrase and rammed it down every channel possible and when people became bored with it or laughed at it, they rammed it some more. “Strong and Stable,” can never be used in a political context again.
Labour however, won the young vote, heavily influenced by social media by coming up with catch phrases like “for the many, not the few,” and promises to throw endless amounts of money at everything that would stimulate an emotional response, the NHS, education, the railways and more. These were messages that people wanted to share, they struck a chord with their values; or did they?
There is a fascinating paper, written in 2014 by Victor Danciu at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, with the title, ‘Manipulative marketing: persuasion and manipulation of the consumer through advertising.’ What has this got to do with serotonin or election campaigns I hear you ask?
It is that behavioural response that is triggered by the release of chemicals in the brain, with serotonin being one of them alongside dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins. These are the “feel good quartet” of compounds responsible for our happiness. Political campaigns, like any marketing activities are designed to stimulate these compounds.
Serotonin is released when you feel significant or important. Dopamine motivates us to take action toward goals, desires, and needs, and gives a surge of reinforcing pleasure when achieving them. Oxytocin creates intimacy, trust, and builds healthy relationships and endorphins are released but the body when stimulated in the right way such as laughing, and they help to alleviate anxiety and depression.
Victor Danciu talks of non-manipulative advertising and manipulative advertising. He says, “non-manipulative persuasion through advertising consists in simply presenting the product or service, in the best possible light. This type of advertising is truthful, that is the facts presented are real, the information is giving in a clear, logical manner, in order to convince by informing.” Just think, how many political campaigns have you seen that would fit into this bracket?
He describes manipulative advertising as, “deceitful advertising which uses facts, but deceptive facts. It uses confusing, misleading or blatantly untrue statements when promoting a product.” Remember the product in an election is a perception, a belief, a political party or an individual. In 2017 the independent newspaper reported that, “ Nigel Farage was forced to admit the Westminster terror attack was unrelated to immigration, following comments he made on Fox News that appeared to link the two.” Remember in politics, every public comment by every politician is designed to send a message, it is marketing and advertising, and this was manipulative advertising.
Manipulative advertising uses facts, arguments in a way designed to have an effect on consumers emotions in a misleading and deceptive manner. Photographs are photoshopped to make the subject look more appealing, the right music is added to stimulate an emotion and humour is used in some adverts to make people laugh. All of these are stimulating the “feel good quartet” and when that happens it is natural to think positively about what is being offered.
In a similar way emotions can be stimulated when negative arguments are pushed out like cuts in police numbers, austerity, hospital waiting times. The key here is not that these are being highlighted, but how they are highlighted.
A full tool set of linguistic, visual, auditory techniques are used in order to influence the thinking of the person receiving the messages. These are not always obvious, Danciu says, “the most important and effective linguistic manipulation is that of subliminal advertising which aims at the subliminal seduction of the customer.”
Dr Michael Kosinski who gained his PhD from Cambridge University, specialised in Big Data. He has shown that analysing a big data profiles on individuals can give insights as to how people think, what they like, what they don’t like and even potentially how they probably vote. This technique is called psychodemographic profiling and he explains how this can be used to develop targeted marketing or messaging, designed to drive a behavioural response in an individual.
Now, combine Danciu’s research with Artificial Intelligence or AI, to ensure the messaging is delivered in the way you want it with the messages you want to hear using language that has had an impact on you before and that is what Dr Kosinski describes.
It is no accident that health professionals or recent hospital patients will see more political messaging about the state of the health service or new investment coming. It is no accident that police officers and people in high crime areas will see more political messaging about police cuts, or reinvestment to recruit more police.
In the United States, ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the Trump campaign has already swung into action to prepare to get President Trump e-elected for a second term. His team is building “a digital operation unrivalled by Democrats in its use of data-mining techniques and algorithms,” the Los Angeles Times reported in June.
The Spectator magazine said of the upcoming general election, “the most pivotal campaigning will take place, increasingly the answer is online. Digital campaigning has risen in importance with each election.” “Personal data is now as important a commodity as oil,” Dean Armstrong a leading QC told The Telegraph this year.
Michael Kosinski found in his research, that a basic profile just based on social media likes can predict your behaviours. An advanced profile, based on what websites you visit, what news you read, your job, your politics, your purchases, and more, would mean such a company knows you better than you know yourself. Combine that with the data of your friends and families and an extremely comprehensive understanding of what makes you and your loved ones ‘tick,’ can be known. This type of profiling has already been abused as the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal highlighted.
With the right data, people can be targeted at an individual level in a way they know it will have the biggest psychological effect, utilising the “feel good quartet” again. Most people will say “I haven’t been influenced by anything; I know my own mind.” I just go back to Danciu comment, “the most important and effective linguistic manipulation is that of subliminal advertising which aims at the subliminal seduction of the customer.”
The potential for undue influence is summed up by a caveat the UK’s secret intelligence agency, MI6, put on many of their human intelligence reports, referred to as CX reports. The caveat says, “this individual may be trying to influence as much as inform.” Influence operations are centuries old, what makes them personal is the ability for computers to develop such detailed profiles and thereby predict behavioural reactions to certain stimuli. Be mindful for your serotonin being hacked!
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