Liberalism promotes uniqueness, initiative, critical
thinking and personal achievements. The American dream – being a ‘self-made (wo)man’
– is an incarnation of such values, that encourages the belief that people can succeed
through hard work and self-determination.
Obviously, television shows and movies perpetuate liberal
values. The Apple advertising campaign from two decades ago, “Think Different”, is a good window into the liberal culture. Even
the logo of the brand, a bitten apple, symbolizes that going against rules and standards
generates imagination and creativity. French advertisements are also an
important vector for the spread of liberal values, such as the Citroën DS3 add (2013, “step out of line”), or the Lancôme add (2012, “In a world full of diktats and convention, couldthere be another way?”).
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How acculturation to the liberal ideology influences
us? To examine this question, Codou, Priolo, Camus, Schadron, Morchain, and
Denis-Remis designed an experiment, published in the IRSP in 2012, to test the effect of liberal
priming on the tendency to attribute behavior to internal causes (e.g., personal
factors: traits, abilities, or personality) rather than external causes (e.g., situational
factors, luck).
Acculturation to liberal ideology and internality
Participants were asked to examine and evaluate various
advertising messages. They received a booklet containing either 15
advertisements that used liberal values as sales argument (e.g., “Think different” Apple, “Your perfume, your rules of the game”
Hugo Boss etc.), either 15 advertisements using sales arguments that did not
refer directly to liberal values (e.g., “Buffalo
hide at an exceptional price”). Then, participants were asked to participate
in a supposed different study by answering a questionnaire, which was actually
the individualistic-pattern questionnaire or QEPI (Questionnaire d’Etude du Pattern Individualiste) proposed by Dubois
and Beauvois in 2005. This questionnaire was developed to measure individuals’
attitude toward individualism, and more specifically internality (vs.
externality), self-sufficiency (vs. hetero-sufficiency) and individual (vs.
categorical) anchoring.
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Each
item described a hypothetical event followed by two possible explanations of
the event, between which the participants had to choose. Some items attributed
a behavior to an internal cause (e.g., “often,
people who have bad things happen to them get what they deserve”), or to an
external cause (e.g., “are not
responsible for their misfortune”), accentuated one’s ability to find ways
within oneself to satisfy personal needs or desires (e.g., “to get ahead in life, you have to know that
the only person you can count on is yourself”) or accentuated others’
ability to do so (e.g., “you have to know
how to knock on the right doors”), and proposed to define oneself in terms
of one’s own tastes, attitudes, and behaviors (e.g., “one can like the same art productions at all age”) or in category
memberships (e.g., “often, the art
productions we like change with age”).
Compared to neutral priming, liberal priming is more likely to facilitate the adoption of individualistic responses. Indeed, when the authors used advertising messages to prime liberal values such as independence, uniqueness, interindividual differences and freedom, participants chose more often sentences with a focus on internality and individual anchoring than the participants primed using a “neutral” material. Thus, this research highlights the relationship between liberal values and individualistic orientations.
Compared to neutral priming, liberal priming is more likely to facilitate the adoption of individualistic responses. Indeed, when the authors used advertising messages to prime liberal values such as independence, uniqueness, interindividual differences and freedom, participants chose more often sentences with a focus on internality and individual anchoring than the participants primed using a “neutral” material. Thus, this research highlights the relationship between liberal values and individualistic orientations.
Media, culture and society
Media and advertising reflects cultural orientations of our societies (and particularly, the individualistic vs. collectivist dimension ; Hofstede, 1980), and appear to play a strong role in promoting such values at the same time. In a collectivist culture, advertising is more inclined to emphasize the social context, success and harmony in social relations (e.g., Chinese advertising for the Audi Q3, 2013). In such context, an advertisement focusing on the product’s ability to differentiate the individual or the affirmation of individuality may turn out counterproductive: instead of being rejected, similarity is celebrated for the links it created, reinforces or reveals between individuals (e.g., Chinese advertising for an insurance brand).
References
Codou, O., Priolo, D., Camus, O.,
Schadron, G., Morchain, P., & Denis-Remis, C. (2012). Ideological priming
and normative dimensions of individualism. International Review of Social
Psychology / Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, 25(2),
59-71.
Dubois, N., & Beauvois, J. L. (2005).
Normativeness and individualism. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35(1),
123-146.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s
consequences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
