Scientific research on the influence of advertising on our lives

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Few find it shocking that advertising affects our sense of life satisfaction. It’s not for nothing that every advertising message is based on the idea that without this new product or service we are not as happy as we could be, and we do not belong to that circle of beautiful and successful people to which we could relate. However, there is now scientific evidence for the correlation between satisfaction and advertising, in a study by Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick and his team. We figure out what we can do so that our happiness does not depend on the ability to afford expensive shoes, a car or the latest iPhone.

But first, a little more about research.

To paint an impressive picture of the relationship between happiness and advertising, Oswald and his research team compared data from a survey on life satisfaction of more than 900,000 citizens in 27 European countries with data on annual ad spending in those countries over the same period, from 1980 to 2011. year.

To keep the study clean, the researchers controlled many factors other than advertising that influence happiness levels: for example, it was important that the data were taken into account so that the level of GDP and unemployment remained constant. The second important point was checking: first, that the increase or decrease in advertising in a particular year does successfully predict the growth or fall of national happiness in subsequent years, and, secondly, statistical control, which helps to verify the strength of empirical connections.

The analysis showed that an inverse relationship between the amount of advertising and the happiness of a nation does exist, but it works with a delayed effect: the higher a country's advertising spending in a year, the less satisfied its citizens are in a year or two.

If you double your ad spending, it translates into a 3% decrease in life satisfaction - that's about half the drop in life satisfaction you see in a newly divorced person, or about the drop in a person who loses his job.

Psychology of advertising

Scientists have been analyzing and figuring out exactly how negative life events affect people for decades, but until recently they ignored the impact of advertising. And it’s completely in vain, because almost every advertisement seeks to provoke discontent and convince us that we are not as happy as we could be. Our dissatisfaction is the success of marketing, because this is how the desires are kindled, forcing us to spend more and more on goods and services, just to alleviate this nagging feeling. In this sense, advertising can only be part of a larger cultural study of how our happiness depends on what we see, hear and read on a daily basis.

The defense line of large advertising corporations is that advertising is nothing more than information. It just opens up new interesting things to the public that can be bought, thus increasing the well-being of people. An alternative and seemingly stronger argument, however, is the idea that exposing people to massive amounts of advertising reinforces their aspirations and makes them feel that their own lives, accomplishments, possessions, and experiences are out of proportion to the average of society.

Advertising makes us want things that we can't always afford. No wonder it doesn't bring joy!

Whether we like it or not, when a person evaluates the degree of his happiness, he always looks at others first, consciously or unconsciously assessing how everyone else lives. Worrying about our own status and position in society is a natural part of being human, and it’s not surprising that many of our beliefs about proper income, car, and home are shaped by our neighbor’s income, car, and home.

It's no secret, however, that social comparisons are emotionally damaging, and advertising directly encourages us to compare ourselves to others. Much the same as when we see someone's beautiful life on the Internet and do not understand why we ourselves live differently. In particular, we take the subway to work while someone drinks freshly squeezed orange juice on the sun-drenched veranda.

Of course, happiness cannot be bought, and very different things have a huge impact on it, such as health, close relationships, work, a sense of social protection. Nevertheless, buying an expensive watch can help us feel a little happier, although deep down it will be associated with the desire to establish ourselves in the status of a more successful representative of the human race. After all, when everyone else buys the same thing, the effect is canceled.

What can be done?

It is worth asking, of course, whether Western society did the right thing by allowing an almost unregulated amount of advertising that comes to us from all sides. Given the recently discovered patterns, it seems like it's time to start thinking about how to establish a norm for advertising information. Until that happens, however, caring for our own happiness is still in our hands.

Of course, you can run away from civilization, build a quiet hut in the woods and never communicate with anyone again. But since most people would still choose to continue living in a consumer society, here's what anyone can do to limit the negative impact of advertising.

1) Limit the amount of time you spend with your phone

It's time to remember that the phone was invented for making calls (well, a modern phone is also for communicating in instant messengers and reading mail). However, even if you cannot give up the irresistible urge to bury yourself in the small screen of your gadget, the main idea is to increasingly involve yourself in activities that are inaccessible to advertisers. Instead of Match Three, with its commercial breaks, choose an evening playing a board game with family or friends.

2) Watch less TV

Television is a medium entirely based on the assumption that a person can be manipulated to buy goods advertised on the screen. By the way, if you think that Netflix is not television and it is not selling you anything, this is not entirely true - now you are not buying a new chocolate bar, but more and more streaming services.

3) Refuse advertising mailings

And all of them: both those that come by e-mail and those that clog up your mailbox at the entrance. At first it will be difficult: is it a joke, first find, and then click all these endless "Click to unsubscribe" or figure out how you generally subscribed to that paper advertisement of new products from the nearest cosmetics store (and how now to remove your address from their database). But if you are consistent, it will work out.

4) Set up a pop-up ad blocker on your computer

Yes, it's that simple - if you don't get rid of all ads altogether, you will still significantly reduce their number.

5) Don't ignore ads, make friends with them

If you think that advertising does not affect you because you allegedly do not pay attention to it, you are mistaken. You need to know the enemy by sight, so you need to notice advertising, but learn to look through it - read manipulation, exaggerated information and work with the influence and those emotions that the advertising message evokes in you.

Most likely, you will not be able to completely remove ads from your daily life, but limiting their number - and becoming happier from it - is within the power of everyone. On the other hand, is it necessary to give it up completely? In defense of our beloved happy families from yogurt ads, Andrew Oswald's research is just one piece of work, and more research needs to be done before his data can be offered as definitive evidence.

And how much would the world really change if the knowledge of the connection between advertising and happiness became a widespread fact? It is unlikely that advertising will disappear just because it upsets some people, because this is only one side of the coin. From an economic point of view, advertising creates a circle of value, leading to competition from cheaper and better quality products. She can be a force for good and inspire people to lead more fulfilling lives - just remember the many inspirational videos from Nike.

Good advertising should aim to change behavior. Perhaps the way out can be found not in reducing the amount of advertising, but in strengthening the advertising message that would promote a new key value - happiness is inside and is not associated with the possession of certain objects.