Matching emotional appeals to emotional context

Fear Or Romance Could Make You Change Your Mind, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (2009-03-24) -- New research suggests that the effectiveness of common persuasion tactics can be dramatically altered by two primal emotions -- fear and romantic desire. ... > read full article

Touching predicts purchase behavior

Buyer Beware: Touching Something In A Store Increases Perceived Ownership

ScienceDaily (2009-03-31) -- To avoid unwanted or unnecessary purchases, keep your hands off the goods. That's the conclusion of a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. ... > read full article

Future use preference differs from immediate use preference

Now Or Later? Consumer Product Evaluation Depends On Purchase Timing

ScienceDaily (2009-05-12) -- Let's say you planned to buy a new car at the end of the year. But then your car conks out and suddenly you need to make a purchase. A new study says you'll use different criteria to evaluate vehicles in that situation than you would if you planned to buy a car immediately but then had to postpone the purchase. ... > read full article

Abortion attitudes -- a barometer of conservative anxiety?

Recent polling has shown a dramatic increase then number of people saying they are against abortion. The increase has been most dramatic amongst whites -- particularly conservatives. Attitudes towards abortion haven't changed substantially amongst Democrats and Blacks.

This recent increase occurred after the election of Obama in November 2008; a similar spike in anti-abortion feelings occurred in 2001.

Could heightened stress from inter-group conflict -- terrorist attacks from Middle East, minorities being elected to the head of our government -- find its expression in greater angst about abortion? Abortion is an easy issue to declare your opposition to -- even those who agree with its need conceptually don't promote the behavior actively.

Its easy to have strong emotions about the killing of babies -- feelings that may not be dissimilar in strength to fears of other groups of people in threatening positions. Perhaps these inter-group fears are displaced and publicly presented in anti-abortion rhetoric.


read PEW Research poll here

read Gallup poll here