Rondeau's Roundtable

Educators and marketers alike have genuine respect for the value of research. Putting good marketing research to use helped one New England university more than double undergraduate enrollment over a four-year period. Learning studies have assisted educators to find ways to more effectively teach traditional and nontraditional students alike. 

Social psychology research can prove just as valuable in undergraduate and nontraditional admissions marketing as well as advancement programs. Fundraising campaigns that use it have doubled participation. An undergraduate yield website designed by The Allied Group, a marketing services company, effectively employs such research. That website helped three universities get yield rates for accepted students who visited it ranging from 43.2% to 44.8%.

Eminent psychologist Dr. Elliot Aronson defines social psychology as “the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people.” Established research in this discipline can tell educators and marketers how students, prospects and alumni are likely to react in certain situations. This is extremely important. Controlled, peer-reviewed experiments often produce results that are quite different than we might expect.  Understanding the findings of scientific studies can help institutions avoid serious problems.

For example, to focus students’ attention on a growing campus problem, administrators may emphasize how many have contributed to it. Messages like, “Many students leave trash in the cafeteria” or “Far too many people text while they’re driving” may communicate the fact that these issues are significant. But research finds that statements like these actually add to the problem. To illustrate, the National Park Service has been greatly concerned over the theft of irreplaceable petrified wood from the Petrified Forest National Park. Park visitors take some 14 tons of it per year. Rangers put up large signs decrying the fact that visitors steal so much wood that someday much of this national treasure may disappear. 

Renowned social psychologist Robert Cialdini, PhD and colleagues put the effectiveness of these signs to the test. They replaced some with placards that simply asked visitors in text and symbols not to take petrified wood. In other areas they took down all signs. Then they put marked pieces of petrified wood along pathways in each area to monitor theft rates. The results, according to Dr. Cialdini, “should petrify the National Park’s management.” Note how many pieces of marked wood were stolen during a brief period:

     • “Far too many visitors steal wood” sign:       7.92 pieces
     •  No sign (control group):                                2.92 pieces
     • “Please don’t remove petrified wood” sign:   1.67 pieces

The park’s commonsense approach to reduce theft by alerting visitors to the enormity of the problem actually made it worse – more than 2 ½ times worse than doing nothing at all! Numerous studies reveal that in certain circumstances people are automatically moved to do what others are doing. This illustrates the fact that including the right social psychology research in well-designed marketing communications strategies can make or break their success.