Resumo

Emotional contagion research has been conducted during different situations, such as people watching movies or face-to-face situations. In addition, the consumers’ negative and positive feelings are predictors of the advertising success and individuals feelings contribute to form the attitude toward the advertising. Despite the large body of literature on emotional contagion in face-to-face interactions, and dynamic adverting such as in TV commercials, there is a gap in the literature to show how press ads with facial expressions influence emotional contagion and product evaluation.

We explore the print ad context, little investigated (Appiah, 2001; Xiao & Ding, 2014). Our objective is to investigate whether different smiles can turn in influence on the evaluation of the product. We propose that this sequence of events (mechanism) occurs through mimic feedback. Furthermore, we support the idea the kind of smile (genuine vs. non-genuine) is different and could affect in different levels the unknown product’s evaluation from ads. We also show that products can be evaluated differently according to the model and reception gender.

Facial expressions are part of emotion communication where there is a correlation between a facial expression and a specific emotion. Psychological research suggests that emotions felt and expressed by decision makers can influence how those individuals make decisions and evaluate products. The mechanism that underlines the transfer of an emotion from one person to another calls Emotional Contagion, that includes mimicking and automatic emotion synchronization to another person. With that, four hypotheses are presented and theoretically supported in the paper.

In this paper, three laboratory experiments were developed. The first one employed a 3 (facial expression: neutral vs. genuine smiling vs. fake smiling) × 1 between subjects’ design. Dependent variables included the evaluation of the product. In the second study, we manipulated the expression in two conditions: expression of joy vs. neutral emotion between subjects. Dependent variables included the existence of mimicry and the evaluation of the product. And, in the third study, we used a mix factorial design model (model ad gender, consumers' gender, and facial expression).

Our results supported our hypotheses. Positive facial expression from a model in press advertising influence to a positive evaluation of the product from the advertising. The genuine smile (vs. fake smile) on print advertising does influence a positive evaluation of the product from the advertising. The positive facial expression on press advertising influences Emotional Contagion. And, the positive emotion vs. neutral acquired from the positive facial expression interacts with gender.

Our study indicated four main contributions to emotional contagions literature: 1- Positive facial expression from a model in press advertising influences a positive evaluation of the product from the advertising 2- Positive facial expression on press advertising influences product evaluation because of emotional contagion 3- The genuine (vs. fake smile) creates greater scores on product evaluation presented on press advertising 4- There is a gender effect on this process. On the managerial implications, companies can use smiling facial expressions on press ads to influence their consumers.

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