Buyology - Martin Lindstrom [14]
The results? Not surprisingly, the September 11 attack imagery and the “Daisy” ad triggered a noticeable, across-the-board increase in activity in voters’ amygdalas, a small brain region named after the Greek word for “almond,” which governs, among other things, fear, anxiety, and dread. Yet Freedman found that Republicans and Democrats reacted differently to ads replaying the September 11 attacks; the amygdalas of Democrats lit up far more noticeably than the amygdalas of Republicans. Marco Iacobini, the lead researcher and an associate professor at the Neuropsychiatric Institute, interpreted this odd discrepancy to Democrats’ fear that 9/11 was a nerve-wracking touch-point that could lead to George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004. Tom Freedman threw in the theory that in general, Democrats are a lot more unsettled by the idea of military force, which they associated with 9/11, than are most Republicans.
But what was most interesting to Freedman was that his study also showed that scanning voters’ amygdalas could be beneficial in designing campaign ads, as playing on voters’ fear has been shown time and time again to be key in securing a politician’s win. After all, Johnson’s “Daisy” ad had helped to ensure his victory in 1964 by playing to the fear of nuclear war. And, as it turned out, history would repeat itself forty years later when the Republicans clinched victory in the 2004 election by sledgehammering the fear of terrorism into voters’ heads. Despite widespread cries that political advertising emphasize “optimism,” “hope,” “building up, not tearing down,” and so on, fear works. It’s what our brains remember.
Although using brain-scanning technology to sway political decisions is in its infancy, I predict that the 2008 American presidential showdown will be the last-ever election to be governed by traditional surveys, and that by 2012, neuroscience will begin to dominate all election predictions. “These new tools could help us someday be less reliant on clichés and unproven adages. They’ll help put a bit more science in political science,” Tom Freedman commented.15
Hollywood, too, is fascinated by neuroscience. A Stanford University experimental neurobiologist, Steve Quartz, has studied subjects’ brains to see how they respond to trailers of movies that are weeks, if not months, away from general release. Are they memorable, catchy, provocative? Will they hook our attention? By exploring precisely what appeals to the brain’s reward center, studios can create the most provocative trailers, or even sculpt the end of the movie to reflect what appeals to us, the viewing public.16 So if you think films are formulaic now, fasten your seatbelts for Rocky 52.
As for law enforcement? One California entrepreneur has come up with a neuroimaging spin on the widely used poly-graph, or lie-detector, test with a product called the No Lie MRI. Its assumption, as any capable dissembler can tell you, is that it takes effort to lie. In other words, saying, “No, I didn’t cheat on you, darling,” or “I swear I used my blinker!” requires a stimulation of cognition—and thus a rush of oxygenated blood to the brain. Even the U.S. Pentagon has increased their research into an MRI-based lie detection program, partially funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which comes up with ingenious new tools and techniques for military use.17
But back to marketing. As we’ve seen, this fledgling science had already made some inroads. In 2002, for example, Daimler-Chrysler’s research center in the German town of Ulm used fMRIs to study the brains of consumers while showing them images of a series of automobiles, including Mini Coopers and Ferraris. And what they found was that as the subjects gazed at a slide of a Mini Cooper, a discrete region in the back area of the brain that responds to faces came alive. The fMRI had just pinpointed the essence of the Mini Cooper’s appeal. Above and beyond the car’s “wide bulldog