We’ve all seen advertisements that depict the ugly consequences of alcohol abuse — a smashed-up car, a drunk making a fool of himself, the chalk outline of a pedestrian on the pavement.
Those anti-drinking ads, according to a new study, can actually trigger a defensive coping mechanism that permits people to mentally distance themselves from the serious consequences of drinking too much. And that causes them to drink even more.
“Advertisements are capable of bringing forth feelings so unpleasant that we’re compelled to eliminate them by whatever means possible,” said Adam Duhachek, an Indiana University marketing professor and co-author of the study. ”This motivation is sufficiently strong to convince us we’re immune to certain risks.”
The effect isn’t limited to anti-alcohol ads, Mr. Duhachek says. Ads that use shame or guilt to curb smoking or unprotected sex can also backfire.
Mr. Duhachek and Nidhi Agrawal, of Northwestern University, interviewed more than 1,200 undergraduate students for the study, ”Emotional Compatibility and the Effectiveness of Anti-Drinking Messages: A Defensive Processing Perspective on Shame and Guilt” which will appear in the Journal of Marketing Research. —Don Troop
Follow Tweed through your favorite RSS reader: 
3 Responses to Ashamed of Drinking? A Stiff Cocktail Might Be Just the Thing …
11124999 - February 26, 2010 at 4:24 pm
This observation actually isn’t surprising to me. Getting lectured about weight loss can drive me to eat more junk food, seriously. Self-sabotaging? Yes. Human nature? Also yes.
puretoo - February 26, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I’d wager that anti-marijuana ads don’t have the same effect, at least not for the same reason. They typically raise non-sensical claims that lack any scientific credibility. If they generate emotional distancing, it’s because viewing users recognize the nonsense, and *rightly* dismiss it – then toke up to laugh at the farce.Anti-alcohol ads might be more successful if, instead of preaching distanceable harms, they suggested safer alternatives. For example, alcohol contributes to domestic violence, rape, vehicular homicide, and more, harming hundreds of thousands every year. Marijuana, by contrast, is the safest therapeutic substance known to man, makes those same harms (DV, rape, auto “accidents”, etc.) less likely, and has not contributed a single death in human history.
mbelvadi - March 1, 2010 at 8:06 am
puretoo, I don’t disagree that alcohol is far and away the more damaging substance, but I saw a recent documentary here in Canada, made by the most respectable people here, which documented how a small percent of people do have a debilitating response to mj, namely that it makes them (permanently) schizophrenic, where no family history of that illness previously existed, nor any other evidence of it prior to the mj use.