Another Look

at the Question:
Does Advertising
Affect Values?
his book titled "AdvertisingA New Approach"
I nWaiter
Taplin noted that among the many charges

JACK Z. SISSORS

frequently made against advertising, is one which

rarely, if ever, is answered satisfactorily. The charge is
that life tends more and more to be influenced by
advertising, and that as a result, the values of our
world are not only dominated but even debased by
advertising (1). The charges are seriousbut even
more serious is the underlying assumption that advertising can change values, presumably for the worse if
not the better.
These charges have been made so often, that those
who work in advertising have learned to anticipate
them and usually have quick rebuttals for almost any
kind of accusation. To the assertion that advertising
stimulates our desires instead of keeping them in
check, the advertising practitioner responds by saying
that people buy only what they want, and who is to
control or check desires in an jtffluent society? To the
charges that advertising promotes and creates a materialistic society, the response is that society determines for itself the way it should live and also that
material gains are related to mental gains. To the
charge that advertising makes persons in lower
socio-economic classes dissatisfied with their way of
living, the response is that this is a good thing because
it raises the standard of living to everyone's benefit.
It is doubtful, however, that these rebuttals are
effective in reducing the frequency or magnitude of
the charges to any substantial degree.
Occasionally, someone suggests entirely different
methods of responding to these charges. As Taplin
noted, since such charges are so "vague, vast and
general," it doesn't make much sense to ask the
criticizers for proof because it could never be proved
in detail. Or, the burden of proof of the truth about the
assertion, and showing whether it has any real meaning rests with those who make it. Indeed, there has
been little or no evidence to substantiate the charges
(2).
If we are going to take these charges seriously,
then I would like to suggest that we look for more
promising directions in answering themdirections
which either eliminate or reduce their impact.

Jack Z. Sissors is a Professor ofAdvcrtisinj^' ar Northwestern Univer.\it\'.\

Medill School of Journidism. where he has tau};ht since 1953. He has a B.S.
and M.S. in Journalism-Advertising and a Ph.D. in Educational
Psycholof^y all from Northwestern University. He is a metnher of the
American Psycholtiuical Association and the American Academy of
Advertising'. He has authored four hooks and numerous artktes on
advertising;, marketing and media.

26

Another Look al the Question: Does Advertising AJfect Values?

while end-states of existence refers to "ends." The

means may be articulated by a person when he says:
"I believe that honesty or courage are personally and
socially preferable in all situations with respect to
objects (4)." Ends refers to the person who says: "I
believe that world peace, or salvation is personally
and socially worth striving for (5)."
The acquisition of money as an object worth
working and striving for may be a value, (an end state
of existence) as are equality, compassion, self-fulfillment, prestige, altruism, or power.
It is important in this context to distinguish values
from other characteristics of humans which are often
used interchangeably as if they meant the same thing.
Attitudes, for example, are not the same as values. An
attitude is an organization of beliefs focused on a
specific subject or situation predisposing one to respond in some preferential manner. Attitudes arise
from values. When an attitude toward something like
the game of football is held, one may be said to fmd
attitudes favorable or unfavorable. The individual
who says: "I like football" is expressing an attitude.
There is no judgment involved in the attitude about
whether one "ought" to approve of football. If the
same individual said: "\m in favor of physical wellbeing, and football is one way of maintaining well
being," hemay be expressing a value. Conduct values
require the person to determine what he "ought" to
believe or do, and as such "it is an imperative to
action" when referring to modes of conduct (6,7). An
attitude simply means that one is likely to respond in a
negative or positive way when the subject of football
is brought upit has little to do with what one ought
to feel about football.

I suggest that we turn our attention to three important aspects of the problem which have not been
considered to any great extent in the past: (I) we
should determine whether these accusations really
pertain to values, or something else: (2) we should ask
Ihe critics to explain how the cumulative etfect of long
term advertising changes values, and in particular,
which values il has changed; and (3) that we try to
determine how individuals adopt or change values, to
see whether through analogy, we can determine
whether advertising could affect values.
Once we have learned that, we may be able to
examine advertising more closely to see whether it
really has any effect on the creation or changes in
values. It is my hypotheses that at the present time we
know very little about this subject, and that advertising's critics take advantage of us because they know
many of their accusations can't be proved. Therefore
their assertions are more in the form of opinion than
factbut the general public does not distinguish between the two, and it's our duty to inform the public of
the true state of affairs. I feel that our critics also
assume there is a one-to-one relationship between
advertising and values, or at least mass communication and values, and that this assumption needs careful examination to test its validity.

LET'S BE SURE THAT WE AGREE

ON THE DEEINITION
OE THE TERM 'VALUES"
Before we can look at how values are created or
changed we should know just what it is we are talking
about. And it should come as no surprise that there is
not much consistency among social scientists as to
what the term values means. The definition of "a
value" may differ when used by an anthropologist, a
sociologist, a psychologist, or a philosopher. Eurthermore, a value is a unique concept that may often
be confused with attitudes, preferences, or needs.
With many varying defmitions used indiscriminately,
part of our problem in dealing with advertising and
values is that we and our critics may not even be
talking about the same thing.
As I examined the literature on definitions of "a
value," I found that the one offered by Milton
Rokeach, Professor of Psychology at Michigan State
University most useful for our needs, because his
definition was a synthesis of definitions proposed by a
number of social scientists. Rokeach feels that when a
person has a value, that he "has an enduring belief
that a specific mode of conduct is personally and
socially preferable to alternative modes of conduct or
end-states of existence (3)." The difference between
the two is that a mode of conduct refers to "means"

A value is also different from a simple preference,

say for a given kind of product. The difference may be
characterized as one which considers what a person
"ought" to buy as opposed to what he wants to buy.
Kluckhohn describes the difference as between the
desired and the desirable. He noted that "Eating
spinach is a value for Smith because Smith likes
spinach or prefers spinach to broccoli is to confuse the
desired with the desirable. . . . If Smith justified his
preference for spinach in rational, or pseudo-rational
terms of vitamins, mineral content, and the like, it
becomes by definition one of his values (8)." Preferences, then, tend to be neutral. They do not require
justification or reference to sanctions. Values do require justification either morally, by reasoning, or by
aesthetic judgment, usually by two or all of these
three.
Values may lead to needs, but they are not the
same as needs. The organism may have needs which
rise out of his perceptions of his values in relation to
the environment (9). When an individual has a need
for belongingness, this need probably arises out ofa
27

JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING
value for the equality of all people, or for brotherhood
of man.
It is my contention that when critics of advertising
use the term values they often may mean something
else because they do not have a precise definition of
the term in mind. When the critics say that advertising
makes us a nation of conformists, they are talking
about conformity as a need, not a value. Many individuals perceive a strong need to conform in this
society. There may be an underlying value which
brings about conformity, but conformity Is a need.
When critics say that advertising encourages us to
spend money for what is trivial rather than what is
significant, they are not usually referring to values, but
preferences. Americans make preferences on how to
spend their money from among many alternatives, but
these preferences tend to be neutral and need not be
justified in terms of what a person "ought" to do.
Therefore, it makes a big difference that advertising's critics confuse the terms values and needs. I
believe that it can be shown that advertising can affect
consumers' beliefs and attitudes about bow a product
meets a need (or want). But I am skeptical about the
ability of advertising to tiffect values because there is a
cognitive gap between values and needs. They are not
the same thing.
One final word about the way values are organized
within an individual which may help us eventually
answer the question: does advertising affect values.
Values seem to be organized hierarchically into a
system within each individual (10). As a result, though
a man might have values of altruism, religious salvation, or the acquisition of money, he may rank money
first and altruism last. This suggests that the intensity
with which values are held by individuals may vary
considerably. It may be shown therefore, that if advertising is able to afi'ect values, it may not affect all of
them equally; in fact, it may affect those which rank
the lowest on a hierarchical scale. We should therefore determine the relationship between advertising
and values both at the top and at the bottom of society's hierarchical scale.

THE LONG RUN EFFECTS

OF ADVERTISING ON VALUES
One of the criticisms that is often made is that
advertising has certain long run effects that cause
Americans to hold undesirable values. David Riesman
summed this up some time ago when he wrote;
. . . it is the long-run effects of advertising that
interest me and which have been very little
studied. Does advertising, for example, make
Americans believe that it's a crime not to be
smiling and happy? or not to be well-built and

physically peppy? Do the mass media make us

feel that unless we have what is culturally defined
as the "best," whether in jobs, or spouses or
consumer goods, we are really only half alive*^
(N)'"
On the surface, there seems to be an element of
truth in Riesman's arguments; but on closer examination, one should find it is an element of trifling size.
Yes, it seems possible that the only thing we can
remember after many years of seeing and hearing
advertising, is that we are constantly being urged to
buy goods and services. We could have forgotten
everything else from those ads especially if we consider the cumulative, confounding effect of hundreds
of thousands of advertisements.
On the other hand, the evidence (and logic) is
weak. Because we remember that advertising urges us
to buy products, does not necessarily change our values. How many times have others urged us to do
things, and we have refused? The church, government, school and the family have also urged us to
change many of our values, and they have had a much
larger cumulative communication effect than has advertising. Yet we are whatever we want to be, as a
group. Why should advertising work when other
communication from other institutions have not
worked?
Riesman himself said that long run effects of advertising have been little studied. I don't think that he
or anyone else is justified in saying that advertising
can change values without better evidence. A better
explanation would be that the interaction of individuals in a culture create values. Advertising that fulfills
these values will probably work better than if it tries to
create its own values.
HOW ARE VALUES CREATED OR CHANGED?
In their book titled The Individual in Society.
Krech, Crutchfield and Ballachy pointed out that values tend to be adopted which are part of an individual's immediate social group. The more closely
aligned with a social group such as a family, or a
church, the more likely the values are seen, discussed,
and passed on to other members. Less likely are individuals to accept values of the larger society, which
perhaps are too general for most persons (12). How
then does an individual learn which values are significant? The answer: through observation and/or communication. Probably most values can be observed by
children from the way their parents behave, so children simply adopt the mode of behavior, perhaps
without even considering what are the underlying values. Communication then would seem to be a less
effective source of values than observed behavior

Another Look at the Question: Does Advertising Affect Values?

value in an incongruent direction (14). New information then would not change a person's values toward
an object or situation even if massive evidence were
presented on behalf of a new point of view. On the
other hand, they do point out that it is sometimes
possible to present new information which is congruent with a person's values so that he moves even
more strongly in the direction of the same values. In
other words, information cannot change values from
love to hate, but they may be able to move an individual even more strongly in either one of those
values: i.e., to love more, or perhaps, to hate more.
In a sense then, individuals tend to perceive communication which is not dissonant with their attitudes and values^or stating it another way: "perception is selective." We perceive what we want to
perceive and tend to disregard what we want to disregard. Bernard Berelson, Professor of Sociology at
Columbia University noted in his discussion of the
effects of mass communication on the culture that
when people feel strongly about something, or have
strong values, they are less likely to be subject to
outside stimuli, or to see or hear advertising that is
contrary to the values they hold (15).

when parents deliberately tell their children what is

desirable and what is not. Perhaps, as is so important
in child training the most effective method of inculcating values is not by direct, but by indirect communication of behavior. But it is doubtful whether
written communication could be nearly as effective as
would oral communication, simply because written
communication might not carry with it the dramatic
effects of voice modulation and authority which orjil
communication could.
In a family situation where the parents are perceived by their children to have high source credibility, it seems that their behavior in front of the children is most influential and their communication directly is less influential in creating or changing values. But in the case of advertising, the analogy from
parent child relationships can't be made. Advertising does not enjoy high source credibility among
consumers, as parents do for children, if we can
believe the 4A"s Study on the Consumer Judgment of
Advertising iO). Furthermore, consumers are not
children and are not likely to be influenced by an
impersonal source of communication such as advertising. So the point I'm trying to make is that advertising as a source of communication is not likely to be
powerful enough to change values of Americans, at
least not directly.
There are some professional advertising people,
however, who believe that the cumulative effect of
many years of advertising does bring about some
changes. They feel that since high frequency of exposure brings about changes in brand buying behavior it
also may bring about changes in values. I have never
seen the evidence for their assertion, and do not
believe that it can be proved.
Even then, as I try to perceive what I can remember about the sum total of many years of advertising, I find that the details of individual advertisements tend to disappear and only a hazy outline of
advertising remains. What is common to all advertisements which have appeared over the years that
might influence consumer's value systems in any
ways? If Riesman was correct, then happy, smiling
ways of living should be a major value in our society.
I don't think that that can be proved either. Why then
hasn't the public adopted such values? The answer
may be that advertising simply has low source credibility.
Other than through these basic methods of transmitting values, there is little research which can be
used to explain how changes in values occur. Krech.
Crutchfield and Ballacy point out that when values
are of such significance to an individual that they are
central to his life, it is doubtful whether any kind of
information that is presented to him would change his

Rokeach. however, feels that when information is

presented in certain ways, it is sometimes possible to
change values. These ways involve creating dissonance within an individual, by showing him how
inconsistent is his value system. In other words, the
assumption is that many individuals do hold contradictory values, and if they are informed of the
inconsistency of these values, they will move to be
more consistent. The evidence of inconsistency is
fairly well documented in some cases of research
where Rokeach showed that college students who
ranked "freedom" first as a value, and '"equality"
low in the hierarchy were unaware that there was an
inconsistency in their value systems. When informed
about this inconsistency they tended to be embarrassed but upon requestioning three weeks, and then
three months later, significant increases were shown
in the positioning of equality up the scale. All of this
agrees with a theory of change which holds that when
individuals are inconsistent in their cognitive evaluations, and are informed ofthe matter, they will tend
to move their values in the direction of consistency
(16).
In terms of advertising's effect on values, it is
probable that advertisers could not accomplish what
Rokeach did in his experiments. Advertisers might
create dissonance, but they may also have a difficult
time of showing each individual that he has inconsistent values. This would be because each consumer's values system may differ too much from his
fellow men's.
29

JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING

Or, it is doubtful whether advertising will be perceived at all if the messages contained therein are
dissonant to large groups of consumers. The consumer is not a captive audience of media. He can
accept it or reject communication at will. So whereas
Rokeach was able to tell students in experiments that
they held inconsistent values, it is doubtful whether
advertising can do the same thing.
Another kind of dissonance may occur when individuals move from one social group into another
where different values are maintained. Many young
people move from their family to a university situation and are thus exposed to a possibly different value
system. Will they change? It has been suggested that
if the values are not very strong, the conflict of previously held values with the new values will result in a
synthesis by which new values are created.
But again, it is diflficult, if not impossible to see
how advertising can use this information to bring
about value change. Conceivably, advertisements
can expose individuals to the new value system, and
bring about internal conflict. It all depends on how
strongly or weakly the individual's value system is. 1
hypothesize that conceivably weak values may be
affected by such conflict situations, but certainly not
strong ones. Social psychologist Kurt Lewin said
many years ago that "much of advertising and most
propaganda are effective not by changing needs and
values as such but by changing the cognitive structure in a way that the propagandized activity appears
to be a part of, or a means to, an area which has high
value for that individual(17)." His point of view then
was that advertising succeeds best in reflecting' the
value systems of individuals rather than showing
conflicting situations or values.
Let me offer some conclusions then, about this
special look which I have taken at an old cliche: that
advertising affects values. The assertion is made
often, and is repeated often, not by everyone, but
usually by a special segment of our society, "the
intellectual." I suppose that if athletes, or musicians,
or businessmen were to make the same assertions
year after year, little attention might be paid to them.
But intellectuals of such stature as Toynbee, Gailbreth, Riesman, or Colston Warne are not easily
dismissed. These individuals for example, seem to
have great source credibility in their own particular
field of specialization such as history, economics, or
sociology. When they go out of their field they often
enjoy high source credibility, not from their colleagues, but from the public. Yet they are talking
about things out of their areas of specialization and
they may be believed by the public because they are
known as intellectuals.
Other than that, there seems to be no clear cut
evidence that advertising has the power to change
30

human values. In the first place, we do not really

know too much about how values are changed. The
subject is not one considered to be of major importance to a large proportion of social scientists. In
fact, the number of such scientists who have conducted research in this field is relatively small. The

research we do have is so specialized and narrow that

we cannot make anything but generalizations about
how values are changed. These generalizations don't
give us enough information that we can thereby apply
to advertising to discover just how advertising affects
values. When we are inclined to accept the criticisms
of advertising's effects on values, we are in danger of
assuming that we know precisely how advertising
works, and how values are created and changed.
I believe that one thing advertising is able to do is
to widely disseminate news about the majority's
value systems to a huge audience, some of whom
perhaps, are not aware of them. In a sense then,
advertising informs some parts of our culture what
the predominant value system is, as reflected through
advertising copy and layout. Whether this influences
those who do not know about the masses' value,
however, is indeterminate.
Does advertising affect values? Since communication has a slight effect on values, we can assume
that advertising must also have some effect. But I
don't think the evidence is very strong. If we at least
raise or continue to raise the three questions which I
have raised here, perhaps we can know more about
the answer to this question in the future.
REFERENCES
1. Taplin. Waller, Advt'rtiiinf;-A NewAppnHuh. Boston, Little, Brown
and Co., I960, p. 146.
2. Ibid.
3. Rokeach, Milton, Beliefs. Altitudes and Vtdi4es. San Francisco.
Jossey-Bass, Inc.. 1968. p. 160.
4. Ibid.
,.,
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Kluckhohn, Clyde, et al. "Values and Value-Orientations in ihe
Theory of Actions.' in Parsons. Talcott and Shils. Edward A.. Toward a
General Jheor\ of Action. Cambridge. Harvard University Press, 1959 p
404.
8. Ibid., p. 397.
9. Ibid., p. 428.
10. Ihid., p. 161.
11. Advenising Age. in The World of Adverti.sinf-. "Dissent from David
Riesman," January 15. 1963, p, 254.
12. Krech. David, Crutchfield, Richard S., und Ballachey, Egerbon L..
Individual in .Sodely. New York. McGraw-Hill. l%2. p. 80.
13. The A.A.A.A.
Study on Consumer Jiidf^mcrii of Adveriisinfi.
"Analysis of Principal Findings." New York, American Association of
Advertising Agencies. 1965. p. 17.
14. Krech, et ai, np. cii.. p. 220.
15. Berelson, Bernard, T h e Great Debate on Cultural Democracy," in
Valiie.^ in America. Donald N. Barrett, ed. South Bend, University of
Notre Dame Press, 1961, p. 152.
16. Rokeach, op cil.. pp. 168-77.
17. Lewin, Kurt. Field Theory in Sodid Science. New York, Harper and
Brothers, 1951, p. 80.