Using Evaluative Conditioning To Increase Liking Of A New Education Channel Logo

Promoting logos using evaluative conditioning: a psychological investigation.

What type of study did you conduct (e.g. was it a correlational study or an experiment)

• Was it a within- or between-participants design
• What were the variables, the IV and DV
• How were the variables ‘operationalised’ (i.e. how were they put into practice)
• What the conditions of the IV were, and how the DV was measured
• A description of any steps taken to limit the potential effects from any variables other than those being measured

The Principles of Evaluative Conditioning

An important question in marketing research is how one might get consumers to like or dislike certain products. One possibility is that consumers like products that become associated in their mind with something that they already perceive to be positive. This sort of association is referred to as ‘evaluative conditioning’ (Terry 2012, p.87). Typically a neutral stimulus, such as a new brand or product, is paired with a positive stimulus, such as a favoured celebrity, and this allows some of the positive feelings and attitudes associated with the celebrity to be transferred to the product. The current study explores whether the principles of evaluative conditioning can be used to increase people’s liking of a new education channel logo.

Previous research, (Wernsing 2008, p.44), has shown that ‘evaluative conditioning’ can be successfully used to influence participants’ attitudes and behaviour. For instance (Chen 2012, p.112) examined the impact of pairing an image of a celebrity with that of a sporting event on how positive people subsequently felt about the event. Participants viewed a short slideshow of images representing a sporting event (baseball or basketball), popular celebrities and distractor images such as landscapes. The images were shown in pairs. Those in the experimental condition always saw the sports event paired with the images of celebrities while in the control condition, the sport-related image was paired with a neutral image. (Chen 2012, p.112) found that those who had seen the sporting events paired with celebrities were subsequently more positive about the sports events than those in the control condition.

Another study, by (Avey 2011, p.97) & (Norman 2008, p.71) showed that evaluative conditioning can have an impact not just on people’s attitudes but also on their behaviour. They showed participants a brief slideshow of images of unhealthy snacks paired with images illustrating the negative consequences of unhealthy eating (the experimental condition) or paired with a blank screen (the control condition). They found that significantly more participants who had seen the images of snack foods paired with negative consequences subsequently made healthy eating choices than those who had been in the control condition. They conclude that the principles of evaluative conditioning can be used to improve people’s eating behaviour, at least in the short term.

The current study considers the effectiveness of evaluative conditioning in a specific, applied context. DE100 module team is launching an educational internet TV channel called DE100 IPTV. DE100 IPTV will show popular programmes relevant to psychology. The team has come up with a logo, and the aim of the current study is to explore whether the principles of evaluative conditioning can be used to make the logo more attractive to the audience. To address this question, an experiment similar to that by (Chen 2012, p.112) was conducted.

Previous Research on Evaluative Conditioning

Although the current project followed the (Chen 2012, p.112) study design very closely, there were some differences. Different stimuli, specifically relevant to the topic of the study, were created and used. For instance, the positive image included a picture of happy students dressed in graduation gowns, rather than that of a celebrity, and the ‘neutral’ images included photographs of everyday objects. Also the procedure was modified to reduce the time needed to complete the task, thereby reducing the possible effects of boredom. So, in the experiment, participants in the experimental condition always saw the DE100 IPTV logo paired with the positive image of graduating students, while in the control condition, the logo was paired with one of the neutral images.

The hypothesis was that significantly more participants in the experimental condition would report liking the DE100 IPTV logo than those in the control condition.

The research study incorporated an experimental kind of a study rather than the relational kind of a study. It was experimental in the sense that the study had some intervention on participants after which it sought to determine the effects of the intervention using the results. The intervention was treating the participants to IPTV logo with different images. It was also experimental in that there were two groups of participants one taking the role of a control experiment so the study could establish the effectiveness of the intervention. The independent variable in this study was the IPTV logo and the accompanying image while the dependent variable was, “liking the DE100 IPTV”. The outcome of the dependent variable depended on the type of image that accompanied the logo. If they were not impressed by the image the result will be, “not liking” and the contrary is true. To ensure that the results were not interfered with, anything that could interfere with mood such as long waiting was eliminated by shortening the process.

40 people took part in this study. 18 of which were male and the other 22 were female. The youngest of the participants was 18 and female and the oldest was 66 and was also female; the mean age was 38.5. The participants were recruited from a pool of friends and family, none of them received any form of payment, course credits or any other incentives to take part in the study. Psychology students and any person who already knew about the research design were not permitted to take part.

The Current Study

The participants took part in the experiment in a quiet and relaxed environment where there were no distractions. On a desk in the room was a standard sized laptop which had a slideshow presentation for the design logos was set up ready to be watched by the participants. The experimenter had a file which contained a full description of the study, consent forms for the participants to sign if they were happy to continue with the experiment, instructions for the experimenter to read to the participant, a response sheet to be filled in as they watch the slideshow and a debriefing sheet to be read to the participant after they complete the experiment and a form if they chose to withdraw at any point. After the experiment was carried out, the results were then recorded on a spreadsheet on the laptop to compare the data. 

Participants were randomly allocated to the control or experimental condition and were tested one at a time in a quiet space with few distractions.

The experiment was described to the participant and they were told they had the opportunity to withdraw at any time. Each participant heard the same instruction that they should ‘Watch the slideshow from beginning to end without interruption’.

The experimental or control condition slideshow was then played. Participants saw images of fictional internet TV channel logos, neutral everyday objects and a positive image of graduating students.

The order of presentation of the images was random in the control condition. In the experimental condition the DE100 IPTV logo was always paired with the positive image of graduating students.

Each image was presented 5 times for 3 seconds. The slideshow took 4 minutes and the full session was no longer than 15 minutes.

After watching the slideshow, participants were asked to complete the response form stating whether or not they liked the DE100 IPTV logo.

The purpose of the experiment was then explained to them in greater detail and they were given the opportunity to ask any questions and withdraw their data from analysis.

This study investigated the relationship between pairing the DE100 IPTV logo with a positive image (the experimental condition) or a neutral image (the control condition) and whether participants subsequently said they liked that logo (yes or no). The hypothesis was that more participants in the experimental condition would like the DE100 IPTV logo compared to those in the control condition. The number of participants falling into the resulting four categories was recorded. The data are summarised in Table 1.

Number of participants who liked/did not like the DE100 IPTV logo by experimental condition Table 1

Table 1 shows that the proportion of participants who saw the DE100 IPTV logo paired with a positive image and subsequently said that they liked the logo (14 out of 20 or 70%) was greater than the proportion of control participants who said they liked the logo (7 out of 20 or 35%).

A chi-square test was conducted to investigate the the effect of condition on participants' responses. The result of the test was statistically significant: X²(1,  N=40)=4.91, p<.05, V=.35, which means that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control condition in terms of how many participants reported liking the logo. The effect size was moderate. Therefore the hypothesis is accepted.

It can be observed from the experiment that indeed there is was a significant difference in the way both the groups responded. It is psychologically natural to find majority of individual liking a given staff or idea and not liking the other. This liking can be influenced by so many factors which are mostly guided by human senses such as sense of touch, taste, sight or hearing. For example when the sight is subjected to an appealing visual image, it is almost normal that the result will be liking and not disliking. In this kind of experiments which the results depends on a person’s judgement more so feelings, the research study should strive to ensure that no external factors interfere with the participants as this can influence the final result. This study took care of this by ensuring the participants were not kept too long so as to make them get bored with the study.

References

Avey, JB 2011, Meta-analysis of the impact of positive psychological capital on employee attitude, behaviour and performance.

Norman, S 2008, Mediating role of psychological capital in the supportive organizational climate: Employee performance relationship. Journal of organizational behaviour.

Terry, P, & Karageorghis, C 2012, Effects of music on work rate redistribution. Sports med journal.

Wernsing, S 2008, Impact of psychological capital and emotion on relevant attitudes and behaviours. The journal of applied behavioural science, 48-70.