Psychological targeting as an effective approach to digital mass persuasion
Matz, Kosinski, Nave and Stillwell start from laboratory evidence that persuasive appeals work better when tailored to people's psychological characteristics. Real-world study of large-scale psychological persuasion has been hindered by questionnaire-based assessment, but recent research shows that psychological characteristics can be predicted from digital footprints such as Facebook Likes. The paper tests psychological targeting in field experiments with real advertising campaigns.
Matz, Kosinski, Nave and Stillwell start from laboratory evidence that persuasive appeals work better when tailored to people's psychological characteristics. Real-world study of large-scale psychological persuasion has been hindered by questionnaire-based assessment, but recent research shows that psychological characteristics can be predicted from digital footprints such as Facebook Likes. The paper tests psychological targeting in field experiments with real advertising campaigns.
Written from the abstract as shown on the OpenAlex record, read 2026-11-04.
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Matz, S. C., Kosinski, M., Nave, G., & Stillwell, D. J. (2017). Psychological targeting as an effective approach to digital mass persuasion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(48), 12714-12719. doi:10.1073/pnas.1710966114.