Haptic Response: How it Feels Matters

Touch Can Trump Taste, Even When It Comes To Selecting Mineral Water

ScienceDaily (2008-07-14) -- For some consumers, the way a cup of mineral water tastes has more to do with the container than the contents. Especially for consumers who are less likely to enjoy touching items or products before deciding to buy them. ... > read full article

Alcohol Ads and Adolescent Drinking

Advertising, Alcohol And Adolescents

ScienceDaily (2008-06-08) -- The advertising of alcohol, the marketing of alcoholic products, peer pressure and parental influence all play a part in the level of alcohol consumption among young people. Researchers found that advertising seems to be most effective in the case of alcopops and cider. ... > read full article

Death and Consumption

Morbid Thoughts Whet The Appetite

ScienceDaily (2008-06-25) -- Can watching TV news or crime shows trigger overeating? According to new research, people who are thinking about their own deaths want to consume more. ... > read full article

Ventral Striatum Key to Adventure Seeking Behavior

Neuroscientists Discover A Sense Of Adventure

ScienceDaily (2008-06-25) -- Wellcome Trust scientists have identified a key region of the brain which encourages us to be adventurous. The region, located in a primitive area of the brain, is activated when we choose unfamiliar options, suggesting an evolutionary advantage for sampling the unknown. It may also explain why rebranding of familiar products encourages to pick them off the supermarket shelves. ... > read full article

Cessation Ads Work?

Exposure To Smoking-cessation Product Ads Helps Smokers Quit

ScienceDaily (2007-07-25) -- The more magazine ads smokers see for the nicotine patch and other quit-smoking aids, the more likely they are to try to quit smoking and be successful --- even without buying the products, finds a new Cornell study. Researchers calculated that if the smoking-cessation product industry increased its average annual spending on magazine advertising by about $2.6 million or 10 percent, the average smoker would see 2.1 more ads each year; according to their calculations, this would translate to about 80,000 additional quits each year. ... > read full article

Better Decisions with Emotional Intelligence

How about dessert? from PhysOrg.com

People with highly developed emotional sensibilities are better at making product choices, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

[...]

Energy Drinks and Risk

Consumption of energy drinks may be linked to increased risky behavior according Kate Miller from the University of Buffalo in a recent published study. It could be due to increased caffeine or that these drinks are often consumed with alcohol. Article

Neural Response to PSAs 2006

Functional MRI of Brain Response to Anti-Smoking Advertisements
Daniel Langleben, MD

"This is a pilot study for the larger center project titled Evaluating Anti-Tobacco public service announcements (PSAs). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study brain response to anti-smoking PSAs. In preliminary studies, researchers used perfusion fMRI to detect increased activity in the components of the brain limbic system in opiate-dependent patients in response to a ten-minute heroin-related video. The results indicated that (1) Brain response to media can be measured with fMRI; (2) Brain response to media varies across target audiences and (3) Specific structures mediating strong interest could be activated in the target population but not the controls. Collaborators at Penn have also used fMRI to detect differential response to the emotional image content. This pilot study takes an important first step towards exploring the feasibility of using magnetic resonance signal as a marker of cognitive (e.g. attention) and emotional (e.g. arousal) responses to different PSAs. Results from this would allow interpretation of the brain response to a PSA in terms of known brain localization of cognitive functions."

Express Yourself

Why Are Some People Unable To Express Their Emotions?

ScienceDaily (2008-05-27) -- Italian investigators have published a new study on the neurobiologic correlates of the inability to express emotions (alexithymia). A deficit in interhemispheric transfer was hypothesized in alexithymia more than 30 years ago, following the observation that split-brain patients manifest certain alexithymic characteristics. ... > read full article

Research Needed on How Consumer Risk Behavior is Impacted by Pharma DTC!

An FDA panel of experts has concluded that more research needs to be done on ads for prescriptions drugs and their effect on consumer behavior.

According to Kristin Davis, deputy director for the FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications 68,000 marketing campaigns including commercials and print ads, magnets and pens, were submitted to the FDA.

A study from the National Institutes of Health found thatin 2005, $29.9 billion was spent on advertising, free samples, and sales staff to promote brand name products. More than $4 billion were spent on DTC ads versus $429 million for ads for doctors.

Read more...

Companies Changing Behavior

Business / Small Business
The Goal Is to Do the Right Thing
By PAUL SULLIVAN
Published: May 21, 2008
Small businesses are trying to provide information to consumers about why their products are considered “green.” Nonetheless, there are few definite rules or standards.

Power Women

Estrogen Fuels Female Need For Power And Control

ScienceDaily (2008-05-23) -- New psychology research suggests that the sex hormone estrogen may be for women what testosterone is for men: The fuel of power. Until recently, some researchers doubted whether women had a biologically anchored need for dominance. ... > read full article

Unintended Effects of Smoking Policies

Increase In Drunk Driving Fatalities Followed Ban On Smoking In Bars

ScienceDaily (2008-05-21) -- A ban on cigarette smoking in bars is meant to save lives by reducing patrons' exposure to secondhand smoke. But it may actually be having an unintended consequence. By comparing data from a variety of locations around the United States where laws requiring smoke-free bars exist with locations without bans, researchers found a relative increase in fatalities caused by drunk driving following ban enactment. It seems that smokers are willing to drive longer distances to an establishment that allows smoking. ... > read full article

Drugs and the Brain

Tracking The Effects Of Addictive Drugs On Brain

ScienceDaily (2008-05-16) -- Researchers may have unlocked the key to better understanding the effect addictive drugs have on the human brain. Researchers discovered that a drug that works through the cannabinoid 1 receptor recognizing the active ingredient of marijuana activates many different transcription factors, triggering the differentiation of neurons, causing permanent changes in a person's brain. ... > read full article

Judgment on the Brain

Exploring The Mechanics Of Judgment, Beliefs

ScienceDaily (2008-05-15) -- How do we know what other people are thinking? How do we judge them, and what happens in our brains when we do? MIT neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe is tackling those tough questions and many others. Her goal is no less than understanding how the brain gives rise to the abilities that make us uniquely human--making moral judgments, developing belief systems and understanding language. ... > read full article

Culture and Extraverts: Sensitivity to Rewards

Sensitivity To Rewards May Distinguish Extraverts From Introverts

ScienceDaily (2000-09-14) -- A new study which looks at the cross-cultural fundamental features of the extraversion personality trait indicates that extraverts find social situations more rewarding than introverts, not because they are more sociable, but because they are more sensitive to the rewards inherent in most social situations. ... > read full article

Pain and Fatigue

Biological Link Between Pain And Fatigue Discovered

ScienceDaily (2008-04-09) -- A recent study reveals a biological link between pain and fatigue and may help explain why more women than men are diagnosed with chronic pain and fatigue conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. ... > read full article

Positive Feelings Broaden View

Positive Emotions Slash Bias, Help People See Big Picture Details

ScienceDaily (2005-02-09) -- Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to new University of Michigan research. ... > read full article

Emotions and Focus

MRI Studies Provide New Insight Into How Emotions Interfere With Staying Focused

ScienceDaily (2002-08-20) -- Duke University researchers have shown how emotions such as fear or horror travel along separate paths through the brain and are more likely than simple distractions to interfere with a person's efforts to focus on a task such as driving. ... > read full article

Ads and Emotion

Advertisers, Neuroscientists Trace Source Of Emotions In Brain

ScienceDaily (2008-02-22) -- First came direct marketing, then focus groups. Now, advertisers, with the help of neuroscientists, are closing in on the holy grail: mind reading. According to a new article, the findings suggest "that human emotions are multidimensional, and that self-report techniques ... correspond to a specific task but different functional regions of the brain." ... > read full article