Suboptimal Affective Primes in Video Messages
Effects on Positive Activation and Negative Activation
Abstract
The authors examined the effects of suboptimally presented primes (facial expressions) embedded into video messages on self-reported positive activation (PA) and negative activation (NA). The results showed that joyful facial primes elicited increased PA only for positively valenced messages, whereas angry facial primes prompted increased NA (fear) only for negatively valenced messages. In addition, high-arousal facial primes prompted increased PA only for high-arousal messages. Both joyful and angry facial primes may influence affective responses when the prime and message content are affectively congruent and when affective responses are measured in terms of PA and NA. When ethical issues are appropriately taken into account, suboptimal affective priming might provide a method to increase the effectiveness of different types of media messages.
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