Using Brains to Change Minds: Predicting Message Effectiveness in Anti-Drug Campaigns

A substantial amount of research has focused on predicting the effectiveness of persuasive messages. In a recent replication study at UCSB’s Media Neuroscience Lab, René Weber and his research group demonstrated that issue involvement modulates the relationship between message sensation value (MSV) and argument strength (AS) in anti-drug messages  for high-risk individuals, MSV and AS lose their predictive power in message design. Moreover, the all too common use of high-MSV, high-AS messages to dissuade drug use may be ineffective, as high-risk receivers are more likely to engage in counterarguing.
In this lecture René discusses the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural correlates of counterarguing. Subsequently, he presents a brain-as-predictor approach using neural activation and self-report data to predict message effectiveness in large independent samples. Results will show that by adding neural predictors to self-report data, the prediction accuracy of message effectiveness in high-drug-risk individuals during counterarguing can reach, and even surpass, the prediction accuracy for low-drug-risk individuals.
The lecture will also include a critical view on neuroscientific approaches in communication science and a brief overview of the Media Neuroscience Lab’s research activities in the areas of moral judgment and narrative processing, effects of interactive narratives, and method development.