Healthy Influence Blog

Close and avid readers recall that WATTage, our willingness and ability to think, is the crucial persuasion variable.  From WATTage comes the three modes of thinking – Objective, Biased, or Cue.  Each person can move quickly from high WATT to low WATT and as a result the mode of thinking can also vary.

Now, all this focus on thinking can make a casual reader believe that WATTage and modes of thought are just psychological constructs that only exist in the head, that the body does not participate in WATTage level or thinking mode.  I want to share a nice research article authored by Wise, Kim, and Kim in the Journal of Media Psychology that demonstrates how head and body work in WATTage and thinking mode.

See, the researchers did a very simple thing.  They randomly induced participants to engage in either “searching” or “surfing” at a computer.  While the participants were either searching or surfing, the researcher also measured physiological responses of heart rate, skin conductance, and corrugator muscle (it furrows your brow) activity.

I’m displaying the physio graphs for the three measures because they demonstrate the physical difference between High and Low WATT processing.  For each graph, the difference between the “searcher” (High WATT) and the “surfer” (Low WATT) is a small plus effect size (Windowpane of about 45/55), but with an alpha < .10 rather than the traditional < .05, so we’re tentative here, but favorable).

The horizontal line (left to right) shows the time Segments from 0 to 3 with 0 being the baseline and 1, 2, and 3 of actual viewing times.  The vertical line (up and down) has the physio score.  The crucial thing to watch for is any change from baseline to Segment 1.

Notice the separation in the run up to Segment 1 which occurs right at the point of processing the information.  For each graph, there’s a clear spike that indicates greater physio responding with the searchers compared to the seekers.

Note that these effects say nothing about whether there was any attitude change or information gain.  This is only about the WATTage difference.  Searchers clearly devote more physical resource when they confront the “message” compared to surfers who tend to show a very smooth curve of physio responding.  It’s the searchers who spike off of that smooth curve.

This research is entirely consistent with a large body of literature that looks at various physio processes in persuasion.  If you want to learn more about that, search on the name “John Cacioppo.”

The takeaway from this post is direct:  WATTage ain’t just in the mind.  It’s in the body, too.