“Emotional Triggers” Can Influence Older Adults’ Response to Fraudulent Practices

The Stanford Center on Longevity has a new report evaluating the effect of emotion on practices used to ensnare older adults.  In Heightened Emotional States Increase Susceptibility to Fraud in Older Adults, the researchers “examined whether inducing high-arousal positive and high-arousal negative emotions . . . increases susceptibility to fraud” and whether the effects vary with age.  They found, for example that:

• Excitement and anger can both serve to increase older adults likelihood of purchasing falsely advertised items, while these emotions did not show the same effect in younger adults.
• “Advertisement credulity” was more often a factor evaluated by younger adults than older adults when deciding whether to make a purchase.   

The study was funded through the Financial Fraud Research Center by AARP and the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. In reading the short report, I was actually reminded of my 7th grade teacher, Mr. Tameron, who had an entire unit on how advertising can unduly influence buyers’ behavior, and darned if he didn’t make exactly this same point (although not separated by customer age), urging us to recognize that emotions such as outrage, attraction, anger, and fear can be used to manipulate customers’ responses to advertising.  Mr. T, you were ahead of your time!

My thanks to Professor Laurel Terry, Dickinson Law, for sharing this link.  Laurel and Howard’s son, Devon, graduates next month from Stanford.  Congratulations, Devon (even as I suspect I’m going to miss getting this easy source of Stanford Longevity Center news)!