How Visual Sensory Cues Influence Reactions on Social Media: An Abstract

Abstract

The use of social media has been increasing at a phenomenal pace over the last few years, with over 2.3 billion people worldwide being on social media in 2016 (Stephen et al. 2017). While different types of pictures are posted, the two most common types of pictures posted are pictures of people and food (Shaw 2015). Would being pictured next to a healthy versus unhealthy food item influence the impressions other users form of the pictured person as well as their online reactions toward the image overall? We examine the behavioral, managerial, and ethical aspects of this phenomenon. The mere presence of another object/person in the vicinity leads to perceived transfer of essence from the other object/person (Morales and Fitzsimmons 2007). Having a stimulus in the vicinity of a person has been shown to influence perceptions about the person (Argo et al. 2006, 2008). Further, low-calorific (high-calorific) foods are more strongly associated with being feminine (masculine) (Rozin et al. 2012; Sobal 2005). Therefore, a person pictured next to a healthy (unhealthy) food item would be perceived as more feminine (masculine). This in turn would influence the overall evaluation of the person. In a social media or advertising context, a female model will be evaluated more favorably in terms of appearance (e.g., rated as being more attractive) when she is pictured next to a healthy (vs. an unhealthy) food, and this effect will be mediated by perceived femininity. We primarily focused on females pictured next to healthy/unhealthy food items since social media posts related to physical attractiveness and sociability are more strongly associated with females (Sifferlin 2013). However, to show the contrasting effects for females versus males pictured next to foods, in one of our studies, we examine the effects for both females and males. We tested our hypotheses across five studies, with two being field studies and three being lab studies. The results show that in the context of social media posts, females are more favorably evaluated when pictured next to a healthy (vs. an unhealthy) food. This effect reverses for males. Process evidence suggests that the effects are mediated by the perceived femininity/masculinity associations induced by adjacent healthy/unhealthy foods. Since managers can influence consumer perceptions related to attractiveness of online models by strategically placing different types of foods adjacent to models, serious concerns can be raised about the ethical and moral aspects of such practices.