How fear and disgust drive consumer behavior | Hacker News Reader

How fear and disgust drive consumer behavior

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18 pointspseudolus14 comments

This is exactly how online political campaigning works these days.

If you can "push someone's buttons" over something that provokes an emotional reaction, an opinion gets formed that's hard to shift, rationally, in the future.

That's why billions of Facebook ads spreading 'fear and uncertainty' over things like immigration and borders etc. did so well to get so many people to vote for things that were against their interests, without them realising it. Like Brexit.

Are you saying it's against people's interests to resist their own demographic replacement? Or are you saying that people voted for Brexit because they incorrectly thought it would arrest such a process?

However feel people 'emotionally' about things like that, justified or not (ie racist/overly 'patriotic'), they failed to realise that we'd all be worse off. There is no upside.

And yes, I'm saying lots of people voted with their emotions over things like that, thinking it would stop it. (Thanks to Mr. Farage et al.)

Laws. Money. Borders. All of which we already had control of. Just clearly not very good at. ;)

> There is no upside.

Iunno not having to learn Chinese/Mexican to order a sandwich seems like a pretty big upside.

I don't remember ever seeing Facebook ads like that. Is any of that documented?

That’s the entire problem with Facebook ads: they are extremely targeted so only the people they are specifically trying to flip see them. Everyone only sees what’s in their own bubble.

Indeed. And Cambridge Analytica turned that into a business model and 'weapons-grade' data.

In quite a few places actually. Here's one https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/facebook-finally-hands-ove...

> This is exactly how online political campaigning works these days.

Not just online propaganda. All propaganda.

> That's why billions of Facebook ads spreading 'fear and uncertainty' over things like immigration and borders etc.

It isn't "billions" of facebook ads. It's human nature. Fear of the other is why we have borders in the first place. Do you have a home? Lock the doors? Etc?

> did so well to get so many people to vote for things that were against their interests, without them realising it. Like Brexit.

Ever consider what ads provoked your reaction?

I mostly get annoyed at blatant and demonstrable lies and innaccuracies that far too any people are unable to determine as such.

> vote for things that were against their interests

People love it when you tell them they are "voting against their interests" when you really mean they are voting against YOUR interests.

Prior to this pandemic, my diet was best it had ever been. After a month or two, I started eating burger n had coke.

I thought to myself its not the worst thing that's gonna kill me. Crazy but several decisions were short term for the first few months of covid.

Initial panic of covid did change my routine. But I am back to old self now, as the panic has gone down

My family began eating better during the pandemic. The reason is that the familiar options (restaurants) became unavailable or less desirable. So we started thinking more about our diet and making more deliberate decisions, rather than following the old routine.

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