I cannot restrain my vampire nature.  When the Internet went mainstream in the late 1990s, I was working in the Federal government.  I immediately saw the persuasion implications of computer interactivity, tracking, and instantaneous modification for behavior change.  For the first time in human history, I had access to a mass communication system that permitted me to dangle messages in front of people, save and obtain their immediate response to the message, then dangle a new message based on that response.  And, given how people use the Internet, surf, baby, surf (which means Low WATT, baby, Low WATT), I have a compelling advantage in the persuasion exchange:  I’m thinking and you’re not.

Yet, if you read most investigative journalism you get pedestrian insights like this.  Here’s the Big Deal:

Coupons.

Yeah.  When you obtain an Internet coupon either from your iGizmo or your computer, the barcode on it contains a lot of Extremely Personal and Revealing Information about you that the store can use.  For example, they learn your Internet address, Facebook page information, and even the search terms you use to get the coupon!  Holy Privacy Invasion!  The store then sends your coupon and the sales information to a marketing company that then aggregates all of this data to refine their Internet coupon marketing.

Consider this exciting insight,

“You can really key into who they are,” said Don Batsford Jr., who works on online advertising for the tax preparation company Jackson Hewitt, whose coupons include search information. “It’s almost like being able to read their mind, because they’re confessing to the search engine what they’re looking for.”

And this startling revelation.

“Wherever we provide a link, whether it’s on search or banner, that thing you click can include actual keywords,” said Rob O’Neil, director of online marketing at Tag New Media, which works with Filene’s. “There’s some trickery.”

Trickery?  Come on now.  These disclosures are so pedestrian that even the United Nations knows about it.

This cannot possibly be the limit of persuasive computing.  Little old me as a dweebie Fed in 1999 had more . . . ahhh . . . nuanced thoughts.  For example, Internet marketers are usually at pains to declare that no individually identifying information is collected, just that aggregate group data.  That sounds reassuring, but I’d offer two concerns.

First, this cannot possibly be true.  Marketers have a tidy file of several hundred bits of information about all of us at the individual level of an email address or a telephone number (probably cell) and certainly a mailing address.  While they may claim to not collect such data, they are playing word games about the meaning of Individually Identifiable.  No, they may not have a file with your name, fingerprints, and DNA sample.  But, they do have an email address for Gopher69@hotmail, a cell phone at 507-888-8888, and an address in Edina, MN, plus 10 years of collated Internet activity at Amazon and Apple, Google and Facebook, and your voter registration, driver’s license data, and whether you prefer Straight or Gay at Redtube.

Second, if it is true that they have no Individually Identifying information on you, they have enough group characteristic data on you that makes your DNA sample irrelevant except in paternity cases.  They know so much about your life that they don’t care what your name is.

Stated simply, they do know who you are, the same way the IRS, the DMV, and your Mother knows who you are.  Yet, they claim they don’t have that Individually Identifying information.  So, what else are they not saying?

I’d suggest that they are creating both group and individual psychological models of your behavior.  Sure, it’s nice to know what search terms you used to acquire a coupon and then what store you took it to and how quickly you redeemed the coupon, but better still I’d like to understand the psychology behind all of this.  If I had access to the kind of data these fellas already had, it would be as easy as falling off the persuasion log to create models based on the Big Five personality model, a persuasion model like the ELM or HSM, complex Standard Models linking reception to processing to response to behavior, and on and on.  And, I could model this in real time.

Beyond that, I’d be creating what I call Persuasion Engines.  A persuasion engine offers messages to receivers in real time, then modifies them based on receiver feedback, and offers a new message more closely aimed at that receiver.  This feedback loop continues throughout the Internet session and is, of course, saved for future session and can be aggregated to create better models.

It would be almost impossible to see this persuasive modeling from your point of view.  You’d navigate into your favorite website, make a couple of clicks on stuff you found interesting, not realizing that you’re becoming more interested and closer to a buying decision with every click until finally you’re at the Checkout.  The website would look normal to you at all times.  I could hide all the persuasion monitoring I’m doing from you.

Journalism is missing all this in part because they are trying to do the same things on their websites.  All media forms that had once been major Cool Table players are now on the eve of destruction from the climate change called the Internet.  Survivors will stay at the Cool Table while the others will be writing Want Fries With That copy.  Survivors must master the Internet and thus have a vested interest in not saying too much about marketing uses of persuasion through the Web.  A biting ethical dilemma, isn’t it?  Journalism wants to speak Truth to Power, but when that Truth involves their Power, then, well, let’s find another Truth, Inconvenient or Otherwise.

I’ve demonstrated before the large, practical persuasive impact of minor word choices.  The easiest word game is with the Why? Because! persuasion play.  You can force people to make either internal or external attributions for their behavior, producing very different outcomes.  You might recall from my Primer page on Attribution the health study that used a letter to motivate women to get a mammogram.  Some women got a letter that used the word You to produce an internal attribution for getting tests while others got the same letter but with The Physician to produce an external attribution for the testing.  For example:

“Your doctor will look at the mammogram for very small masses that aren’t detectable by a self exam.”

“You will ask if the mammogram revealed very small masses that aren’t detectable by self exam.”

When women received the You letter, they were more likely to get a mammogram (66%) versus women who got the Your Doctor letter (57%).  All with just that little word difference.

Now comes along a new study that tries the same persuasion play, but with physicians rather than patients.  Tony Roberto and colleagues designed letters that varied with the word choice and also the frame (more on that in a second) creating four different types of letters, plus a control condition.  The letters encouraged physicians to perform a particular test regarding kidney function that is well within their training, experience, and skill.  A large group of doctors were randomly assigned to get one of the five letters (control or the four combinations of attribution and framing).  The docs were then surveyed for their intention and behavioral likelihood to perform the recommended test.

The attributional manipulation was quite simple.  For example:

Your failure to detect the disease early may lead to its progression, increasing the likelihood that your patients will need dialysis.

A physician’s failure to detect the disease early may lead to its progression, increasing the likelihood that a person will need dialysis.

Notice both sentences argue the same claim about prevention and progression and only vary on that minor wording difference of Your Failure or A Physician’s Failure.  Additionally Roberts et al. included a framing manipulation that actually worked!  (Please read why this is surprising here.)

The Big News in this is not that Why? Because! worked or that for once a framing manipulation worked as predicted, but because these two persuasion variables interacted to create the same positive outcome (stronger intention and behavior likelihood to do the new test), but under different conditions.

See, when physicians got a letter that had You words with a Gain frame (Your success in detecting the disease early may prevent its progression . . .), they reported stronger intentions and greater behavior likelihood of performing the new test compared to the letter with The Physician in the Gain frame at a small Windowpane effect.  Thus, connecting a Gain with You is better than a Gain with The Physician.

Now, with a Loss frame, the effect reversed.  Thus, when physicians got a letter that had The Physician Words with a Loss frame (A physician’s failure to detect the disease early may lead to its progression . . . ), they reported stronger intention and greater behavior likelihood compared to the letter with Loss and You; this was a moderate Windowpane effect.  Thus, connecting a Loss with The Physician is better than Connecting a Loss with You.

Simply put, You will Gain works better than Physicians will Gain and Physicians will Lose works better than You will Lose.

More simply still:  people will take personal responsibility for Gains, not Losses; people will take “corporate” responsibility for Losses, not Gains.

The practical persuasion here is that you need to consider both the attribution and the frame.  People want to see themselves as accountable for Gains, but they want a group responsibility for Losses.  Either approach works, but you need to keep them separate.  If you are pitching Gains, make sure you make tight, personal attributions – this is Yours, only You can do it, You make it happen.  If you are pitching Losses, make sure you make them diffuse, group attributions – this is Ours, only We can do it, We make it happen.

It also appears that group attributions with Loss frames works the strongest.  People tend to be punishment averse.  They don’t like losses, pain, or suffering compared to the “same” amount of reward.  But, as we’ve noted before, this Gain versus Loss frame is considerably trickier than the early theory predicted.

Small things make for big changes according to the Cool Table.  Nudge is the art of the small.  Hey, the journey of one thousand miles begins with the first step.  Small is smart.  Subtle.  Nuanced.

Feast on small at SmallStep.gov, the latest smart small government persuasion play to change you.

(# 3)  Do sit-ups in front of the TV.
(# 10) Skate to work instead of driving.
(# 28) Bicycle to the store instead of driving.
(# 42) Choose an activity that fits into your daily life.
(# 44) Ask a friend to exercise with you.
(# 45) Make time in your day for physical activity.

(# 23) Don’t eat late at night.
(# 37) Don’t skip meals.
(# 79) Don’t skip breakfast.
(# 88) Don’t take seconds.

SmallStep.gov has 169 of these Nudges, Nuances, and Nags.  Who knew it was so easy?

Now, let’s get persuasion serious about this.  People are automatically, habitually, and routinely performing the wrong small steps and that’s why they are unhealthy.  Without thinking, they skip breakfast or eat seconds or drive instead of walk or don’t schedule exercise.  How do you break the automatic, habitual, routine?

Each of these small steps requires, demands, and permits nothing less than constant High WATT consideration of every calorie consuming or burning moment in your life.  You must dial up the dimmer switch and then choose the small thing.  And, if you always or most always choose the small thing through careful, effortful High WATT processing you will consume 10 fewer calories or burn 5 more calories.

Hey, it adds up!

But, only if you go High WATT every time you are in a calorie consuming or burning situation and you then choose the small step until it finally becomes the new Automatic, Habitual, Routine.

Do you see the flaw in this?

People are predisposed to go Low WATT, that low effort, low capacity state that Cues along the Peripheral Route.  Choosy people choose the Peripheral Route 9 out of 10 times!  Simply knowing that Small Steps exist (as if Americans couldn’t pass that true-false test) will not produce the High WATTage needed in each small steps situation to generate the small step.

With SmallStep.gov the Cool Table expects these Nudgey moves will demonstrate the power of small, but smart government producing large change through small, accumulated effects.  Of course, the fact that common sense, rational theorizing, and a huge empirical literature contradict the Cool Table is irrelevant.  SmallStep.gov is cool!  But ineffective for healthy behavior change.

Now, at the level of Big Politics, I get this ploy.  The Obama Administration looks active, smart, and engaged without Regulation, Fine, Subpoena, or Imprisonment.  Hey, baby, this is Change We Can Believe In, especially for folks who also believe in the Tooth Fairy, the Free Lunch, and any of the Three Great Lies.  It is also a feel-good, low cost, no-brainer ploy that requires little effort to prepare, less to execute, and none to justify.

But, it won’t work.  It will produce no change, whether the kind in which we Believe or in which we Don’t.  That leads to cynicism, arrogance, and isolation as artfully displayed in the old movie, A Face In The Crowd.  As always, Power Corrupts Persuasion.

Further, there’s a difference between persuasion and smoke and mirrors.  SmallStep.gov is smoke and mirrors for changing health, but most persuasive for the politics.

Finally,  All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.  But who’s got the sincerity here?  The folks who labored to put this up or the folks ordered it?

P.S. If you haven’t seen A Face in the Crowd, put it in your Netflix queue and give it a try.  It features Andy Griffith (yes, the Sheriff of Mayberry) in a very different role that explores the bad side of InSincere Persuasion.  You can check out this short version (with French subtitles, ooh-la-la).  Warning:  The short version, about 15 minutes long, gives up all the movie.

If you live long enough, the ironic becomes an unavoidable response to life.

For many years I taught a media effects class that contained a long unit on a scientific analysis of the impact of media violence on human aggression.  Yes, the science finds a bad effect – more exposure to media violence, more human aggression – but the effect is small and clearly disconnected from large scale societal crime.  Of course, back then, all the media sources from TV to movies laughed at the claim.  NBC in particular strongly disputed the “research” and conducted their own to prove that media messages had no effect on viewer thoughts, feelings, and actions, especially at a large social level.

Today, NBC sees it differently.  In a nice Wall Street Journal story, we learn that NBC is subtly and with great nuance weaving into its broadcast comedies and dramas positive portrayals of characters doing good things like reducing the use of plastic in the Office, exercising more, and eating less.  They try not to preach, but through a constant, subtle, and nuanced drumbeat of positive behaviors in the media models, NBC wants to do its bit to make the world a better place.

So, from 1965 through today, media violence has no effect on viewers, but from this season on, NBC will glow with a thousand points of light and illuminate the path to a healthier, safer, and Greener world!

Past the obvious irony, you also need to know that NBC’s ratings have collapsed since the grand days of the 1970s and 1980s as audiences flock to any of the myriad media choices we now have in the world.  And, gee whiz, using lifestyle themes in the shows to attract niche audiences for advertisers actually works, so one might more wisely look up the other sleeve with NBC’s pious programming.  This isn’t prosocial; it is profitable.

Recall, my earlier Visual Persuasion post on the many faces of Buddha.  NB-see it!

Remember:  All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

I’m probably the last guy on the Webosphere to notice this, but here’s a screen grab from a news story I read today on the Wall Street Journal.  Please click on the image to inflate to full size so you can see the details.

Yeah, that’s my Facebook page with a post from my old college roommate, Mo.  Mo’s post has nothing to do with the WSJ nor does any post on my Wall.  Yet, WSJ and Facebook are cooperating in real time to paste my Facebook content into another website’s content.  As near as I can tell, my Facebook content also has nothing to do with the news story which is about banking reform.

For now, this mashup of WallFace only occurs with the banking reform story.  When I click on any other WSJ link, I don’t get the WallFace mashup.  But every time I click on the bank story, there’s me and Mo looking almost exactly like we did as roomies 40 years ago except we’re both wearing blue suits and not smoking.  And, if I continue to click on the banking story, the WallFace mashup recurs, but the content will change to another element from my Facebook page.

I assume, but don’t know, that I’m the only person in the world seeing this exact content.  I cannot imagine that my Facebook page has achieved a supernatural status today and has become an international news story.  I suspect that if you click on that bank story, have a subscription to WSJ, and a Facebook page, you’ll see a WallFace mashup of your Facebook content.

(Melanie just tried this on her computer.  She does not have a subscription to the Journal, but when she clicked on the banking story, she, too, received the WallFace mashup with content from her FB page.)

I understand what the fellows at Facebook and the Journal are trying to do, but they are just doing it badly today.  They want to match up my personal information from FB with something on the Journal and make a stronger and more emotional connection between me, WSJ, and Facebook.  They clearly are not reading my Blog which routinely criticizes these bad persuasion plays from Facebook.  But, they’ll get better at this.

It’s fun when the curtain slips and you see the Persuasion Guy behind the scenes.  Makes you think about the possibilities, doesn’t it?