Features of the use of cognitive biases in native advertising

Glukhova Elena Sergeevna Senior Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages for Specific Purposes, Baikal State University 11 Lenin Street, Irkutsk, Irkutsk region, 664003, Russia dovgy@inbox.ru

Introduction

Today, almost all large companies use online advertising to promote their products because of its advantages. First of all, advertising on the Internet has a huge audience, since almost everyone uses the Internet for different purposes: someone reads the news, watches movies or gets an education, others search for various information or order goods. However, when searching for the necessary information on the Internet, unnecessary advertising is often found in the form of pop—ups, constant impressions, etc. Users try to filter out unnecessary information, use ad blockers because they feel tired of constant advertising messages, which leads to "banner blindness" - the brain ignores unnecessary information.  Therefore, it is increasingly difficult for advertisers to attract the attention of customers and increase the effectiveness of their advertising in order to increase sales and impact on the target audience. That's why recently native advertising (English native advertising – "natural, native") It is becoming a widespread and integral tool of promotion in the media industry. The relevance of the research, therefore, lies in the importance of analyzing native advertising in media discourse from the standpoint of cognitive linguistics within the framework of cognitive-discursive and biological approaches.

Materials and methods

Native advertising is "advertising that corresponds to the format, functions and subject matter of the platform on which it is placed" ^{[1, p. 243]}, thus it is perceived not as advertising, but as interesting native non-advertising content. Interestingly, back in 2016, IAB Europe published an official document on native advertising for the first time, and in December 2021 it released a "Guide to Native Advertising" to shed more light on one of the most commonly used forms of advertising by marketers.

As for the classification of native advertising, in our study we adhere to the classification that I highlighted  Bartosz V. Wojdinski. It organizes native advertising in terms of its functions and context and divides it into 3 categories: sponsored content, lists of sponsored hyperlinks, and sponsored social media posts. A distinctive feature of sponsored content from other forms of native advertising is that advertising itself offers content that can be used alongside the publisher's own content. Articles of sponsored content differ in form to the same extent that the content of publishers differs, for example, ads resembling text news articles may appear on a site containing text, and video ads on a site publishing video ^[2].

Native advertising, unlike banner advertising, creates the impression of non-promotional content, includes original stories, and the information in such articles often has a higher informational value due to the context, in this regard, consumers find it more attractive and less inclined to avoid it. Since native ads often contain links to websites, consumers believe that if they do not click on the links, they are not exposed to advertising, which leads to the fact that people do not expect that manipulative techniques can be used in these types of advertising messages.  Designing an influencing effect with the help of linguocognitive tools is becoming a common practice in the media space. The purpose of our research is to detect cognitive distortions embedded in the texts of advertising articles in order to exert a hidden influence on the addressee in order to increase sales of their product. The identification of cognitive distortions and the linguocognitive mechanisms behind them (LCM) is aimed at combating manipulativeness in advertising and at increasing awareness of a wide audience when perceiving advertising messages. Our research is a development of the concept of effective communication and the "Smart Discourse Tuning" technology ^[3], which revealed the main linguistic and cognitive mechanisms and cognitive and communicative parameters that can be flexibly adjusted to control the level of impact on the addressee, the effectiveness of discourse and communication. Using this technology, it is also possible to "analyze and deconstruct destructive discursive and communicative practices, identifying the cognitive tools involved" ^{[4, p. 764]}.

Cognitive distortions in native advertising are chosen as the object of research, and the subject is the methods of verbalization of cognitive distortions. The research material is articles of native advertising (sponsored content) on city portals, that is, on information portals about the life of a particular city with useful information for both residents and visitors of the city.  60 advertising articles were analyzed, including 30 articles from the following portals in the Russian-speaking segment of Internet communication: irk.ru , omskinform.ru , spbvedomosti.ru , krasnoyarsk.dk.ru , nsk.dk.ru , the other 30 examples are selected on English-language portals: londonist.com , bristolpost.co.uk , leeds-list.com , nottinghampost.com , timeout.com for the period August – December 2023. The involvement of the material in Russian and English in the analysis is caused by the need to test the hypothesis, as well as to investigate whether there are nationally determined cognitive distortions in native advertising.

The methods used in the work include an interpretation method that establishes the nature of understanding a concept in a naive linguistic consciousness based on various means of its implementation; assuming that the values are calculated by the interpreter, and not contained in a linguistic form; at the same time, interpretation is understood as a cognitive process and at the same time the result in establishing the meaning of speech and/or non-speech actions ^[5]; a method of discourse analysis that allows us to trace the relationship between the linguistic and extralinguistic side of the text; a statistical random sampling method consisting of selecting a subset of objects from a larger population to ensure an unbiased representation of the entire population. The theoretical basis of the analysis was the concept of the power of discourse ^[6], the theory of interpretation ^[7], the theory of linguistic interpretation ^[8], the concept of cognitive distortions ^{[9, 10]}, adapted to the tasks of our work.

Analysis of theoretical sources

Initially, the concept of cognitive distortion was introduced in 1972 by Israeli psychologists D. Kahneman and A. Tversky ^[9]. Later, D. Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his research in the field of human behavior in conditions of uncertainty. Cognitive distortions are systematic errors in thinking that often occur according to certain patterns in various situations due to incorrect judgments ^{[9, p. 5]}. In other words, people make mistakes, but we are not talking about random mistakes, but about those that occur constantly, equally and predictably.

As it was found out earlier ^[11], D. Kahneman's approach is based on the idea of the brain working in two modes, which he calls System 1 and System 2 (the terms are borrowed from the works of K. Stanovich and R. West), who are responsible for fast and slow thinking, respectively. According to Kahneman, intuitive System 1 has a much greater influence on our thoughts and decisions than we assume, and it covertly influences many of our choices and judgments ^{[9, p. 17]}. So, in order to write a convincing message and people believe in it, the researcher suggests using cognitive lightness by reducing cognitive stress, for example, not using complex words where simple ones can be dispensed with. If the message is associatively linked to other beliefs and preferences of the addressee or comes from a source that he trusts, then the addressee will feel cognitive ease. There may also be other reasons for lightness, including the type of font and the attractive rhythm of the prose, but it is difficult to track the source of your feelings. In addition, some cognitive biases are called heuristics because the solutions they lead to are incomplete and approximate. They use the substitution method: if a difficult question cannot be answered satisfactorily, then system 1 looks for an easier related question and answers it.

As for linguocognitive mechanisms, they underlie the power and authority of discourse, and their establishment "contributes to understanding the deep processes of generating, constructing and perceiving discourse" ^{[3, p. 119]}. I. A. Yakoba identifies 12 linguocognitive mechanisms such as framing, reframing, focusing, defocusing, engagement, dialogicity, imagining, inspiration, metaphorization, personalization, positioning, spin-doctoring, however, this list remains open. Some of them have subspecies, for example, LGM of engagement has subspecies of business involvement, dynamics, play, innovation, communication, and LCM of imagining is divided into subspecies of positivization, dramatization, distortion, hyperbolization, reduction and intensification. Often, these mechanisms are used together to achieve a goal, which enhances their synergistic effect ^[3]. Thus, we can say that the basis of intentionally created cognitive distortions is the activation of cognitive mechanisms that act suggestively. The study of cognitive distortions, which are often found in decision-making, can also be viewed from a linguistic point of view, how they are formulated and verbalized, because the formulation of these messages leads to how they will be perceived by the addressees. 

Results and discussion

During the analysis of 60 advertising articles published on Russian information portals of Irkutsk cities (irk.ru ), Omsk (omskinform.ru ), St. Petersburg (spbvedomosti.ru ), Krasnoyarsk (krasnoyarsk.dk.ru ) and Novosibirsk (nsk.dk.ru ), as well as on the British portals of the cities of London (londonist.com , timeout.com ), Bristol (bristolpost.co.uk), Leeds (leeds-list.com ) and Nottingham (nottinghampost.com ), cognitive distortions were found in 80% of all studied cases.

In the analyzed advertising articles, the most common cognitive distortions are the effect of joining the majority and the framing effect (Table 1).

Table 1. Frequency of cognitive distortions in native advertising

The framing effect is based on psychological principles that control perception when solving problems and lead to predictable changes when the same problem is formulated in different ways ^[12]. In other words, we are talking about transmitting some identical information, messages in different ways and often they are associated with different emotions. Framing studies show that seemingly small differences in wording can have important consequences.

James D. Druckman talks about two types of framing effect. The first one he calls the equivalence framing effect, which uses different but logically equivalent words or phrases to frame a message, for example, it is often mentioned about a positively or negatively framed statement (in terms of benefits or losses). The second is the emphasis framing effect, which shows that by highlighting a subset of potentially relevant attributes, the speaker can encourage people to focus on these attributes when forming their opinion ^[13]. Based on this division, several subspecies of framing can be distinguished under the emphasis effect. Thus, framing of risky choices, framing of attributes and framing of goals are highlighted ^[14]. The framing of risky choices, introduced by Tversky and Kahneman (1981), refers to the results of a potential choice that includes options that differ in risk levels and are described in different ways. Attribute framing is based on highlighting certain attributes or characteristics of an object, and goal framing, which is based on the assumption that recipients are more likely to respond to a message corresponding to their own goals ^{[14, p. 150]}. Goals can be internal and external. For example, the formation of an internal goal is based on the achievement of goals such as health, personal growth, while the formation of external goals emphasizes the achievement of goals such as wealth, fame, image ^{[15, p. 108]}.

 In addition, there are such types of framing as temporal framing and value framing.  Temporal framing is based on the idea that most people prefer to receive a certain benefit now, instead of receiving a delayed benefit at some point in the future. Value framing indicates that consumers are more likely to respond to a certain message if it is framed in a way that affects what they value. The effectiveness of value-framing messages will depend on the ability to connect to consumers' perception of value. For example, it was found out that the message structure based on “gives” and “receives” leads to a different perception of value by consumers ^{[15, p. 109]}.

The framing effect was found in 21 ads. Basically, there is value framing, which emphasizes values such as:

   - family, family values, for example, in an article about a pizzeria –"the tradition was passed down from grandmothers or even great-grandmothers", "as from a grandmother's cellar", "often for us, what is tastier than any gastronomic delights is what is associated with dear people, a memorable place, for me it is a big family", "Come on pizza pasta or branded fruit drink – you will feel this warm, family-friendly atmosphere in the hall";

 - comprehensive development: when describing the Warrior Sports Club – "we believe in holistic development, the child will also benefit from our character building programs, which focus on values such as respect, perseverance and sportsmanship", "We strive to instill these qualities in every young athlete, preparing him not only to sporting success, but also to life challenges", "Every parent wants their child to grow up adapted to life" or in an advertisement about St. Ursula's Academy — "a strong sense of community which is helping pupils to reach their full potential, a safe and nurturing academy where safeguarding and the well-being of its children is its utmost priority", "The academy not only wants children to achieve academically, it values their personal, social, moral and emotional development";

 - health: "At the start of the school year, positive emotions are especially needed for children, because a good mood along with good health is the key to excellent studies", "We took care of the water park and recreation for adults, because September is the time to strengthen the immune system";

- safety and comfort: "The first and basic such need is safety. The requirement for the level of cyber protection has come to the fore today. The second business need is comfort. This is about the convenience of using assistant services, and about the speed of work, and about access to a wide range of functionality on one screen. The third business need is easy access to banking products and services. It is important for entrepreneurs to get the most out of the bank's products and services without unnecessary steps";

 - children: "family-friendly", "... offers exceptional experiences for all ages", "Your adventure starts with your little ones checking into the Singa Cub Club, where they'll receive a goodie basket with an activity booklet", "child-friendly bathroom amenities", "Here you'll find a range of spa treatments by Bonpoint, including ones specifically tailored to children — family bonding time doesn't get much more serene than this!", "What's more, kids under 6 eat for free in Pan Pacific London's signature Straits Kitchen restaurant — with kids under 13 getting 50% off", "Take advantage of the complimentary turn down service, including a personalized one for kids that allows them to choose a pre-bedtime treat and goodnight drink", "it'd sure make for a memorable school holiday";

 - teamwork: "we believe in the power of shared experiences and what could bring us more together, even teams who don't get out in time will have plenty to celebrate, that bring all generations together." 

The article, which advertises an outerwear store, defines the framing of goals, because with the help of these clothes, a person will close both the need for comfort (internal purpose) and the external goal — beauty: "Cashmere is ideal for a feeling of comfort, not only warm you, but also emphasize individuality, it will be comfortable even in the first frosts, it's beautiful", "Of course, to buy a new outfit to walk in any weather, enjoy comfort and your reflection in the mirror to create a sense of coziness, but also emphasize individuality and love for unusual things." An advertising article about a private school repeatedly emphasizes the focus on results, for example: "With ity of London Freemen's School has a stellar reputation for results", "This year, more than half of all grades achieved at A Level were A*- A, with 86% of grades being at least a B. What's more, 10 students from the class of 2023 left with straight A*s, while a total of 39 received only A grades or higher, the Sixth Form at Freemen's prides itself on unlocking students' intellectual potential, A majority of this year's leavers will go on to their first-choice university, is just one way in which the school helps create confident leaders who can blaze trails in all sorts of arenas." In the advertisement about the construction group, the main idea is based on the fact that all their houses are rented on time, and more often even ahead of schedule, there are no delays: "SEE Construction Group.The CITY rents out the first house 9 months ahead of schedule", "320 apartments with finishing were built there in a year", "The SM Company.The CITY has never violated the deadline for housing commissioning. All participants in shared-equity construction receive the keys to the apartment within the time specified in the contract and in the project declaration", "I allow well-established construction planning processes to deliver objects on time." Those people whose goal is relaxation and fun will respond well to the following message: "Inside this glittering winter wonderland you'll find festive food and drink, nostalgic tunes, and five enticing curling sheets", "No stress, if you fancy taking advantage of off-peak prices or are looking to banish those winter blues", "Who needs Courchevel, eh?".

 Framing of risky choices in car salon advertising was also revealed: "Prices have already started to rise. And according to all forecasts, they will continue. Therefore, I advise motorists the following: if you need a car, buy it now, buy it on credit if you need it. Perhaps now you will take a car at a higher bank rate than before, but you will fix the price of the car. It will take quite a bit of time, and your car will increase in price. There are also always options to refinance at a lower interest rate. But the pricing of cars is unclear today, and they will definitely not get cheaper further. Therefore, we need to hurry with the purchase."

Some advertising articles focus on explicit attributes, for example, in an article about Oxo restaurants, the emphasis is placed on beautiful views, a varied menu, high quality products, but is silent about the cost. The university, which offers state-supported business development courses, forms out its cost message as follows: "What's more, because the course is 90% funded by the government, it'll only cost you a one-off fee of ?750 – a tiny price to pay for the amount of learning you'I'll take on". Thus, the message is framed in terms of acquisition, since almost the entire amount of 90% is paid by the state, only 750 pounds remains to be paid, thus we understand that for a relatively small amount we receive an expensive course.

Having studied the framing effect in various subspecies, it was revealed that it is often based on the following linguistic and cognitive mechanisms:  framing, imagining in the subtype of intensification, focusing, inspiration.

 The English-language term "bandwagon effect" was first used by the American economist Harvey Leibenstein ^[16]. This distortion is a type of groupthink and represents a tendency to adopt certain behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes if most people have accepted it. Many scientists consider this effect from different points of view: from an economic, sociological, cognitive, biological, as well as from the point of view of management and marketing ^[17]. The effect of joining the majority was noted in 9 Russian-language and 8 English-language articles. So, in many native ads, recipients are trying to convince that the product is good, simply because a lot of people use it. For example, this can be achieved using:

 - mentions of various awards, as in the article about the school "It isn't just Ofsted who have been impressed by St. Ursula's practices and work, with the school earning awards from Eco-Schools, The National School Travel Awards, Anti-Bullying Alliance, Young Carers, School Games and Arts Mark"; in an article about the restaurant: "Having our roots in the seaside town of Brighton with The Coal Shed and The Salt Room (winner of Best Seafood Restaurant 2017 by Caterer) The Coal Shed One Tower Bridge is our first London venture"; or in an article about an investment company, "The company is among the top 5 organizers of bond issues by the end of 2022. The rating of its reliability and quality according to the National Rating Agency is at the AA–level. She is also one of the top 25 leading operators of the Moscow Stock Exchange. SOLID Broker's client base has more than 15 thousand clients";

- focusing on a large number of fans – "Fans of this longstanding South Bank restaurant are legion" or emphasizing that the place is very popular (although this may not be true) – "Cared for by the National Trust which states the property is within the top 100 most visited attractions in the country", "Aqua Shard, located on level 31 of The Shard, is the hottest destination for events", "During her 10-year practice, she was able not only to teach several thousand students, but to instill in them a love of the English language", "Every year more and more website owners";

- references to famous names and organizations – "renowned lighting experts SLX 27", "chef from the top list in Irkutsk", "teas from famous European tea houses Ronnefeldt and Gutenberg with more than a century of history and coffee", "In addition, I helped organize the Technoprom forum in 2022 and 2023." In fact, when authoritative names are used, we are talking about the authority effect, which describes our tendency to be influenced by the opinions of authoritative people. This tendency leads to the fact that people tend to accept this information without a critical understanding of the content, simply because this information comes from a supposed authority. In our study, we consider the effect of authority as a subspecies of groupthink. It should be noted that such LCM as involvement, inspiration, and focusing are behind this distortion, which indicates a synergistic cognitive effect on the addressee.

In 20% of the articles, such a distortion as emotional thinking is highlighted.  Since any decision-making often takes place with the participation of emotions, it is noted that the combination of strong emotions with the advertised product is one of the important ways to be noticed by the consumer, and the effectiveness of advertising is directly related to its ability to elicit an emotional reaction ^[18].

It was noted that in many advertising articles about restaurants they try to evoke positive emotions, for example, the very title of the article "A Summer Of Feasting On The Fifth Floor At Harvey Nichols" creates a vivid picture using visualization mechanisms. The text of the article is emotive and appeals to the feelings of the addressee, creates a beautiful image of a restaurant with delicious food. For this purpose, emotionally colored epithets finer things, iconic luxury, fantastic value set menus, a better way, one of central London's chicest neighborhoods, as well as unusual names of dishes - a Greek-style watermelon salad, smoked trout with shito pepper sauce, kofte lamb leg served with heritage tomatoes and olive salsa are used verde, aubergine schnitzel with a pickled radish salad, confit salmon, and char sui pork, black forest mousse cake, burnt vanilla cheesecake. Cognitive distortion "emotional thinking" includes linguocognitive mechanisms – imagining in the subspecies of positivization, dialogicality, inspiration, personalization, spin-doctoring.

In some advertising articles (16%), a cognitive distortion "fear of lost profits" was found. The fear of lost profits often stems from a more general distortion – loss aversion. The fear of missing out on something important, interesting, profitable makes us vulnerable to temptations and often forces us to act quickly, pushes us to rash actions. In these articles, this distortion was encountered through the fact that the creators of the message offered:

- fix the price – "Perhaps now you will take the car at a higher bank rate than before, but – fix the price of the car",

 - book at a special price – "Only this year it is possible to book insulated glamps at a special price – 5 thousand rubles per day for two",

- take advantage of the discount for a limited time – "That is why the Bright September promotion will be valid at AquaRio all month, during which a full-day children's ticket can be purchased for only 500 rubles",

- book for free at a certain time – "Hurry, book your visit now for free",

 - simulated increased demand – "... still has a few places available for their next course."

  Since this distortion is based on the fear of missing out on something important, this also applies to missed opportunities, as in the article about the sports club - "Do not miss the opportunity to give a child sports and personal growth."  Basically, these cognitive distortions activate LGM inspiration and engagement, but LGM catastrophization has also been noted. There is also a distortion of zero risk, when people prefer options that lead to a reduction of a small risk to zero, rather than a slight reduction of a much greater risk, and therefore 5 ads were designed as a draw and launched LGM involvement in the game. Advertisers offered to fill out a questionnaire and agree to send the brochures to the post office, while the mail must be valid, since the winning message will be sent to the post office. But there were also those when, on the pre–Christmas days, stores of large chains offered to take free carrots for Rudolph next to the stores so that their stores would be selected - "The carrots will be available in stands at the front of stores and shoppers will be able to help themselves. You don't need to make any other purchase».

 The analyzed type of native advertising (sponsored content) is designed in the form of articles, which causes the presence of a narrative error in them. Its distinctive feature is the tendency to link together certain facts, even if there is no real connection between them, and create a story that may not be true. This may lead recipients to make false conclusions or assumptions based on incomplete or inaccurate information. So, in 11 advertising articles, the authors narrated, citing various facts as proof, linking them unreasonably into a beautiful picture, conducted pseudo-dialogues and offered pseudo-selection, thereby using LGM spin-doctoring.

In addition, the use of such distortions as the halo effect, the compromise effect, the contrast and anchoring effect, and the tendency to confirm one's point of view is highlighted. In one advertising article, the distortion catastrophization was used to hurry up the recipients and speed up the purchase.

Conclusion

The results of the study show that the use of cognitive distortions that encourage recipients to make purchases is common in native advertising, namely in its subspecies of sponsored content. In 80% of the analyzed advertising articles, the use of at least one cognitive distortion was recorded, therefore, it can be argued that a formulated message in a way that stimulates the occurrence of distortions can have a significant impact on a person's perception of it and mislead, for example, overestimating its usefulness or value. Despite the fact that cognitive distortions have been identified in both Russian-language and English-language advertising articles, we have not found nationally determined cognitive distortions and differences in their use. The revealed cognitive distortions are the effect of joining the majority, the framing effect in various subspecies, the effect of authority, emotional thinking, fear of lost profits, narrative error, the halo effect, the compromise effect, the effect of contrast and anchoring, the tendency to confirm one's point of view, catastrophization are directly related to the following linguocognitive mechanisms framing, imagining in the subtype of intensification and positivization, focusing, inspiration, involvement in communication, involvement in the game, inspiration, dialogicity, personalization, spin-doctoring, catastrophization, which indicates a synerical cognitive effect on the addressee.

However, this article has a number of limitations, since the analysis was carried out on a limited sample. Moreover, in this study there was no task to analyze the polycode text, although each article was accompanied by vivid illustrations, photographs, links to go to sites, and some even video sequences, whereby the influencing effect is more pronounced, and sometimes the illustrations themselves can cause cognitive distortions. Thus, this study could serve as the beginning of a full-fledged study and conduct it on larger samples with the analysis of polycode texts and the study of the effectiveness of messages.