Digital Mass Psychological Targeting

In this bit of science published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the above cute ads were tailored to individuals’ personality characteristics.

Persuasive appeals that were matched to people’s extraversion or openness-to-experience level resulted in up to 40% more clicks and up to 50% more purchases than their mismatching or unpersonalized counterparts.

Personality targeted ads are significantly more effective than those not predicated on an unauthorized intrusion into your soul.

Everyone will want to do this soul intruding now.

For example, psychologically tailored health communication is effective in changing behaviors among patients and groups that are at risk. Hence, targeting highly neurotic individuals who display early signs of depression with materials that offer them professional advice or guide them to self-help literature might have a positive preventive impact on the well-being of vulnerable members of society.

Sure, yeah, jolly good. That definitely sounds like a thing that could happen (in a textbook).

On the other hand, psychological persuasion might be used to exploit “weaknesses” in a person’s character. It could, for instance, be applied to target online casino advertisements at individuals who have psychological traits associated with pathological gambling.

Now that sounds like the internet I know and loathe.

Dance like no one’s watching (but Facebook totally is).