Winning the Battle but Losing the War: Ironic Effects of Training Consumers to Detect Deceptive Advertising Tactics

Andrew E. Wilson (), Peter R. Darke () and Jaideep Sengupta ()
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Andrew E. Wilson: Suffolk University
Peter R. Darke: York University
Jaideep Sengupta: HKUST

Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 181, issue 4, No 10, 997-1013

Abstract: Abstract Misleading information pervades marketing communications, and is a long-standing issue in business ethics. Regulators place a heavy burden on consumers to detect misleading information, and a number of studies have shown training can improve their ability to do so. However, the possible side effects have largely gone unexamined. We provide evidence for one such side-effect, whereby training consumers to detect a specific tactic (illegitimate endorsers), leaves them more vulnerable to a second tactic included in the same ad (a restrictive qualifying footnote), relative to untrained controls. We update standard notions of persuasion knowledge using a goal systems approach that allows for multiple vigilance goals to explain such side-effects in terms of goal shielding, which is a generally adaptive process by which activation and/or fulfillment of a low-level goal inhibits alternative detection goals. Furthermore, the same goal systems logic is used to develop a more general form of training that activates a higher-level goal (general skepticism). This more general training improved detection of a broader set of tactics without the negative goal shielding side effect.

Keywords: Persuasion knowledge model; Goal systems theory; Deceptive advertising; Deception; Consumer training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04937-7

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