Dual Process Intuitions: Consumers’ Beliefs about Persuasion Processing Drive Morality of Marketing Communications

Consumers tend to dislike companies that use immoral marketing persuasion tactics. How do consumers decide what persuasion is morally acceptable and what persuasion is not? Three studies show that morality of marketing persuasion depends on consumers’ beliefs about information processing—Dual Process Intuitions. If consumers think persuasion aims at emotions and intuition—bypassing deliberative reasoning—they will evaluate it as more immoral and manipulative than persuasion believed to be processed deliberately. This is because consumers find system 1 processing (fast and effortless; e.g., encountering fear appeal ad) more automatic than system 2 processing (slow and effortful; e.g., reading about a product). Since system 2 (rather than system 1) persuasion is considered less immoral, it yields greater positive attitude change than that of system 1. These findings contribute to the literature on lay theories about persuasion, beliefs about information processing, and morality in marketing. Practitioners may use these results to better tailor their persuasion messages, especially if their customers are usually sensitive to persuasion—by creating the perception of autonomous choice using system 2 persuasion.