Media Psychophysiologyand Strategic Communication

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Media Psychophysiology and Strategic Communications: A Scientiﬁc

Paradigm for Advancing Theory and Research Grounded in Evolutionary
Psychology
Article in International Journal of Strategic Communication · October 2023

DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2023.2261238
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International Journal of Strategic Communication
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hstc20
Media Psychophysiology and Strategic

Communications: A Scientific Paradigm for
Advancing Theory and Research Grounded in
Evolutionary Psychology
Yen-I Lee, Yoon-Joo Lee & Paul D. Bolls
To cite this article: Yen-I Lee, Yoon-Joo Lee & Paul D. Bolls (2023) Media Psychophysiology
and Strategic Communications: A Scientific Paradigm for Advancing Theory and Research
Grounded in Evolutionary Psychology, International Journal of Strategic Communication, 17:3,
181-198, DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2023.2261238
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION
2023, VOL. 17, NO. 3, 181–198
https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2023.2261238
Media Psychophysiology and Strategic Communications:

A Scientific Paradigm for Advancing Theory and Research
Grounded in Evolutionary Psychology
Yen-I Leea, Yoon-Joo Leea, and Paul D. Bollsb
a
Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA; bAssociate Dean of
Research & Graduate Studies, Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
ABSTRACT
Researchers working in the discipline of Strategic Communications can sig
nificantly enrich strategic communication by grounding theorizing in evolu
tionary psychology. This opportunity can be more fully realized through the
application of a rigorous scientific paradigm for strategic communication
that conceptualizes human brain processes as well as the attitudes and
behaviors produced by brain activity through the lens of evolutionary psy
chology. The importance of scientific paradigms in mass communication
research has been outlined before. Many of these ideas seem to apply to
strategic communication research as well. We present media psychophysiol
ogy as a theoretically rigorous and practically valuable scientific paradigm for
advancing the application of evolutionary psychology and the mind sciences
in the strategic communication discipline. This article reviews the necessity
of a newer scientific paradigm for strategic communication research, over
views the media psychophysiology paradigm, and provides recommenda
tions for applying evolutionary theory and the media psychophysiology
paradigm to advancing mind-science-based strategic communication
research and theory.
Introduction
The relationship between the human mind and the brain has been the focus of philosophical and
scientific inquiry for centuries (Westphal, 2016). Inquiry into the nature of interactions between
mind and body and how those interactions guide individuals as they navigate their physical and
social environments has produced a broad area of theory and research appropriately termed the
science of the mind or mind science (Kandel, 2013). Mind science encompasses an expanding
range of disciplines including the sciences, philosophy, religion, humanities, and increasingly the
social sciences. Two social science disciplines tied to Mind Science that are especially relevant to
this article are evolutionary psychology and psychophysiology. The integration of these two
disciplines into strategic communication can produce a rigorous scientific paradigm for advancing
strategic communication theory and research. Evolutionary psychology is an approach to psychol
ogy guided by evolutionary principles (e.g., natural selection) and biology in attempts to under
stand the human mind and behavior (Cosmides & Tooby, 1997). Psychophysiology is a form of
mind science focused on understanding mental processes engaged through human-environment
interactions as revealed through the physiological activity of the human nervous system (Cacioppo
et al., 2019). This article presents media psychophysiology, a specific form of mind science
grounded in evolutionary psychology, as a scientific paradigm that can advance theory and
CONTACT Yen-I Lee yen-i.lee@wsu.edu Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University,
Murrow Hall, Room 106D, Pullman, WA 99164-2520
© 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
182 Y.-I. LEE ET AL.
research in strategic communication. Media psychophysiology is a thematic branch of psychophy

siology focused on advancing explanations of media effects through the study of mental processes
engaged by interactions with media content and technology as revealed through the physiological
activity of the human nervous system.
Media psychophysiology and evolutionary psychology in strategic communication

The central argument presented here is that media psychophysiology can be used to advance a much-
needed application of mind science – grounded in evolutionary psychology – to strategic commu
nication theory and research. Media psychophysiology is an established area within the psychophy
siological scientific paradigm (Bolls et al., 2019). It provides strategic communication researchers with
the advantages of a scientific paradigm – including ways of theorizing about processes and effects of
strategic communication campaigns through the lens of mind science – with validated measures and
methodological procedures. It is important to note that research on mental processes which are
engaged when stakeholders are exposed to strategic communication campaign content – as can be
done through media psychophysiology – has high theoretical and practical value. However, this is
obviously only one stream of the rich and diverse discipline of strategic communication research.
There are significant concepts in strategic communication research for which the application of media
psychophysiology will be less useful. Examples of such concepts may include the measurement of the
prosocial impact of organizations and the effectiveness of press kits and other channels or platforms.
The media psychophysiology paradigm was established through research on media processes and
effects. Therefore, it is going to be most useful for strategic communication research focused on
features of campaign content in media such as video, audio, text, photographs, websites, etc. The
following sections expand on this central argument and discuss how Media Psychophysiology might
be applied in two separate areas of strategic communication research, work that is grounded in the
evolutionary process termed costly signaling and narrative persuasion. We begin with a basic intro
duction to mind science and how it builds on the growth of evolutionary psychology and biological
frameworks in strategic communication theory and research which led to this special issue of the
International Journal of Strategic Communication.
Kandel (2013) called for a new science of the mind under what we are terming mind science. This
new mind science consists of multiple disciplines including neuroscience, biology, psychology, evolu
tionary psychology, and many other social sciences, coming together to provide new theoretically
grounded insights into the processes through which a human mind/brain produces human experi
ences. This encompasses the vast domain of human experiences that are the core focus of psycholo
gical sciences such as consciousness, emotions, memory, attention, attitudes, and behavior.
Researchers working in the psychological sciences have discarded dualistic views of mind and brain
in favor of rigorously grounding scientific research in biological and evolutionary theory. This
approach maintains a central role for phenomenology as a process to be scientifically understood by
researchers who wish to advance insight into the human mind as it emerges from the human brain (see
Feldman Barrett, 2009 for an example). Strategic communication theory and research can be tremen
dously enriched by a growing number of scholars in this discipline embracing mind science like
a growing number of their colleagues in other social sciences.
The articles published in this special issue indicate how scholars in the discipline of strategic
communication are embracing theory and research grounded in what can be broadly termed mind
science. Strategic communication has joined other disciplines in exploring how understanding the
nature of the human mind might advance scientific explanations of discipline-specific phenomena tied
to how individuals mentally process messaging and campaigns for organizations and issues. An
example of this, specifically from advertising theory, is the proposal that embodied motivated
cognition (Lang & Bradley, 2010) serves as a theoretical framework for advertising research on
advertising effects (Bolls et al., 2012). A scientific focus on understanding the nature of the human
mind and how human experiences like emotions, consciousness, and even behaviors emerge from the
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 183
activity of the human mind, the core of mind science, has been central to advertising research and
theory for several decades and is gaining a foothold in strategic communication research and theory.
The fruitful progress in strategic communication that theorizing rooted in the broad foundation of
mind science produces can be seen in efforts to reconceptualize strategic communication through the
theoretical lens of evolutionary biology (Greenwood, 2010). The Institute for Public Relations (IPR)
launched the Behavioral Insights Research Center (https://instituteforpr.org/behavioral-insights-
research-center/about-birc/) to advance the application of what could be termed behavioral mind
science in public relations. This center of strategic communication research has produced valuable
practical insights into mental processes such as narrative persuasion that have potential to drive the
effectiveness of strategic communication campaigns. Evolutionary reasoning has been presented as an
approach to strengthening research on communication phenomena including public relations (Brill &
Schwab, 2020; Marsh, 2017). It is also more common for published strategic communication research
to include measures based on psychophysiology/neuroscience in experimental designs (Avery & Park,
2018; Ravaja et al., 2015). Such experimental designs are characterized by the application of physio
logical measures such as the electroencephalogram (EEG) for a recording of brain activity, heart rate,
and facial muscle activity. Physiological measures are organized according to whether the activity of
the central (brain) or peripheral (organs, glands, and muscles) are being recorded. Psychophysiology
includes both central and peripheral nervous system measures whereas neuroscience is dominated by
central nervous system measures. Psychophysiology/neuroscience is the methodological core for mind
science in the social sciences including media processes and effects research (Potter & Bolls, 2012) that
includes research on media content and technologies that are highly relevant to strategic
communication.
The relevance of mind science – a scientific focus on the nature of the human mind/brain – to
strategic communication is being recognized in both academic and applied settings. There are,
however, significant gaps in how mind science is reflected in strategic communication theory and
research. Direct applications of mind science in strategic communication research have mostly been
confined to answering questions about how features of messages, most often health campaign
messages (e.g., Leshner et al., 2018), impact mental processes engaged by messages. The application
of mind science in areas that are more broadly tied to public relations theory is lacking. Examination of
recent public relations theory textbooks, such as Travis and Lordan (2020), leads to the conclusion that
what we are terming mind science – a consideration of the human mind/brain that is rooted in
evolutionary psychology and biological science – is completely lacking in canonized theoretical
approaches to public relations. This leaves a significant gap in strategic communication theory and
research because it scientifically ignores the most important element in strategic communication, the
human mind/brain. This article presents a paradigm that can significantly advance the process of mind
science shedding light on advancing theory and applications in strategic communication, ultimately
building on the progress that has already begun. This paradigm requires scholars to consider
a reconceptualization of two key concepts in strategic communication, ‘organization’ and ‘public’
through the lens of mind science. This paradigm can lead to rich theoretical development and research
that fills significant gaps in scientific understanding of strategic communication as a human-centered
process which is fundamentally grounded in the ideas of evolutionary psychology and biology.
Mind science-based concept explication in strategic communication

The Public Relations Society of America has produced a professional definition of public relations as
the process of strategic communication focused on producing mutually beneficial relationships
between organizations and stakeholders. Organizations and stakeholders are primary concepts in
professional definitions of strategic communication that illustrate a weakness in how concepts are
currently explicated by researchers. Concept explication – the process of developing conceptual and
operational definitions for concepts – is the foundation of research. Concept explication in strategic
communication is conventionally not based on mind science leading to conceptual definitions that
lack meaningful connection to the mind sciences. Conceptual definitions of these concepts appro
priately emerge from theorizing grounded in organizational communication and business but this all
but ignores what is arguably the most foundational and important element in organization/stake
holder relationships – the human minds from which organizations and stakeholders emerge. The
process of building mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and stakeholders
obviously involves human communication which is a phenomenon that occurs between two or
more human minds/brains through processes that lead to message production and message reception.
This claim is argued persuasively by Annie Lang in her Dynamic Human Centered Communication
Systems Theory (Lang, 2020). Lang’s theorizing about communication indicates that strategic com
munication theory could be strengthened by re-explicating the concepts of ‘organization’ and
‘stakeholder’ as groups of what Lang calls embedded embodied minds. This means that as human
beings, the most psychologically relevant characteristic of stakeholders from the perspective of mind
science is that their minds are embodied in and revealed through the human nervous system, mainly
the brain, and are embedded in a physical/social environment that shapes and can constrain their
interactions in the environment. This would arguably represent a rigorous application of mind science
in strategic communication theory and address a significant weakness of current research in strategic
communication that attempts to inform how communication strategies and tactics impact organiza
tions’ relationships with stakeholders. Strategic communication currently appears to have what
decades ago was recognized as a ‘black box’ problem in media effects research where the human
mind/brain was treated like a mysterious black box in theory and research (Geiger & Newhagen,
1993).
The solution to what is recognized as a ‘black box’ problem, as described above, is for researchers to
shift from conventional and industry-rooted conceptualizations of research concepts to what is
presented here as mind science-based concept explication. This solution requires new conceptualiza
tions of concepts like organization and public that explicitly acknowledge that the most crucial
element in strategic communication between organizations and publics is the evolutionarily derived
embodied human mind – a mind that is embedded in individuals who are further embedded in the
communication environment. This form of concept explication solves the ‘black box’ problem in
strategic communication theory and research. It is beyond the scope of this article to extensively detail
and engage in this new form of concept explication in strategic communication. This would require
‘explication’ in the full sense outlined by Chaffee (1999). It requires an extensive review of existing
conceptualizations of ‘organizations’ and ‘publics’ and then proposing a mind science based reformu
lation of conceptual and operational definitions of specific concepts – formally incorporating the
notion of embodied and embedded minds as the fundamental building blocks of concepts. This could
hold great promise for new theorizing and even more extensive adoption of methodologies and
paradigmatic thinking grounded in psychophysiology and neuroscience. This could also serve as
a catalyst for expanding applications of mind science in strategic communication theory, research, and
practice.
The state of mind science-based theory and research in strategic communication

The key to progress through mind science that was just described is to assess the state of integration of
what we term mind science in strategic communication and address potential barriers to scientific
progress. There appears to be what Kuhn (2012) would term a community of scientists in strategic
communication adopting theory and methods from mind science. There is less evidence that this
community of scientists has adopted a formal scientific paradigm that can guide theory, methods, and
professional practice into a new era rooted in evolutionary theory and the mind sciences. This new era
will require scientists to adopt a formal paradigm that can serve as a foundation for understanding the
nature of the human mind/brain through insights into biological and physiological processes from
which responses that are crucial to effective strategic communication emerge. This paradigm must
help researchers shed light on processes and effects related to strategic communication as occurring
through communication between embodied embedded minds that make up organizations and publics.
The importance of scientific paradigms in mass communication research has been argued by Lang
(2013). Many of her ideas seem to apply to the present state of strategic communication theory and
research as well. Lang argued that the state of mass communication research is most accurately
described in Kuhnian terms as a state of crisis rather than a pre-paradigmatic state of normal science.
Strategic communication, rather than being in a crisis fueled by paradigmatic conflicts, can be aptly
described as being in a crisis due to the lack of a strong scientific paradigm that can underpin a more
powerful explanatory science of strategic communication due to not treating the human mind as
a ‘mysterious black box’ in related theory and research. A promising path forward in addressing this
crisis in strategic communication research and theory is for researchers who want to ground their
work in theorizing emerging from evolutionary psychology and biology to adopt a new formal
paradigm for theory and research.
Adopting a new scientific paradigm in strategic communication

Strategic communication researchers who wish to produce novel insights grounded in mind science
need to go beyond borrowing theoretical concepts to designing empirical research that investigates
how individuals mentally process and respond to communication. This research requires reconcep
tualizing ‘organization’ and ‘public’ as entities that foundationally exist as embodied embedded minds,
recognizing the evolutionary nature and biological/physiological functioning of the human mind.
Researchers must further proceed to use psychophysiology and neuroscience as the paradigmatic and
methodological core of this effort. The only way for strategic communication researchers to achieve
the scientific progress described here is to adopt an appropriate scientific paradigm. A formal scientific
paradigm helps guide the development of knowledge in a discipline by supplying scientists with
a framework of fundamental assumptions and methodological procedures for investigating phenom
ena (Kuhn, 2012).
It is important to note that we are advocating for adopting a formal scientific paradigm rather than
engaging in more shallow incorporation of mind science in strategic communications. Such shallow
incorporation of mind science would consist of simply considering evolutionary psychology and the
nature of the human mind in theorizing and adopting measures of mental activity reflected in
physiological/biological data. This can easily happen when researchers, or even companies/organiza
tions as in the case of neuromarketing (industry application of mind science), become overly excited at
the prospect of ‘peering into the minds/brains’ of stakeholders by recording physiological activity in
a study. This leads to a shallow, atheoretical, application of Mind Science that often fails to produce
scientifically valid and practically valuable insight. That mistake was made by researchers who engaged
in some of the first attempts to use physiological measures of mental activity in media effects research
(Lang et al., 2009). Researchers who made those early attempts failed to understand the complex
relationship between a stimulus (e.g., sexually explicit media content) and psychophysiological
indicators (e.g., skin conductance, a measure of arousal) because they were not strongly grounded
in the Media Psychophysiological paradigm. The application of physiological methods in media
research failed to lead to valid insights into cognitive/emotional processes underlying media effects
until researchers adopted the Psychophysiological paradigm (Lang et al., 2009). This paradigm has
been further specified as Media Psychophysiology and Neuroscience (Bolls et al., 2019). Bolls et al.
(2019) provide a review of examples of published research strongly grounded in the Media
Psychophysiology paradigm and offer suggestions for future research. This is the paradigm we
recommend to usher in a new era of the application of Mind Science in a way that sheds light on
strategic communication as a human mind/brain-centered process and offers novel scientific explana
tions through strategic communication theory. Mind Science and ideas from evolutionary psychology
can of course lead to novel theorizing without the adoption of the Media Psychophysiology paradigm.
We have already noted examples of this occurring. We do propose, however, that empirical science
that advances theory in strategic communication needs to adopt the media psychophysiology para
digm and the resulting methodological framework because a critical mass of research conducted in
accordance with a shared paradigm will be more than the sum of its parts. A shared paradigm that
incorporates the media psychophysiology paradigm has the potential to build on the strong body of
knowledge produced through conventional research in strategic communication while producing
novel insights grounded in mind science. This can produce synergy between researchers who utilize
valuable but different research approaches leading to the sum of insights under a shared paradigm
being greater than insights produced by single paradigms conducted in isolation. Some might express
a valid concern that research conducted under the media psychophysiology paradigm sacrifices
relevance by neglecting the extensive complexity of ‘real world’ human communication experiences.
This paradigm does employ the controlled environment of laboratory-based research. However, the
psychological/social complexities of a more naturalistic environment can be incorporated into rigor
ous experimental designs with control and treatment conditions (e.g., stimulus manipulation). The
details of how to do this are beyond the scope of this article but an interested reader can look to more
recent work in health communication to find relevant examples (e.g., Clayton et al., 2019). We now
turn to a basic explanation of the media psychophysiology paradigm.
The media psychophysiology paradigm

The media psychophysiology paradigm is a specific application of the psychophysiological paradigm
(Cacioppo et al., 2007) directed at how individuals interact with and are potentially influenced by
media content and technology (Bolls et al., 2019). Psychophysiology is generally defined as an
interdisciplinary science rooted in psychology, anatomy, physiology, and biology as well as focused
on the investigation of mental processes as revealed through physiological events in functioning
organisms (Cacioppo et al., 2019). There are fundamental assumptions and unique considerations
researchers will need to be familiar with to adequately adopt this paradigm and advance strategic
communication theory and research.
There are multiple descriptions of the psychophysiology paradigm in general (Cacioppo et al.,
2019) and the adaptation of this paradigm into the media psychophysiology paradigm (Bartholow &
Bolls, 2013; Bolls et al., 2019; Lang et al., 2009; Potter & Bolls, 2012). We offer a summary of three
primary paradigmatic assumptions and the methodological approach contained in the media
psychophysiology paradigm.
The media psychophysiology paradigm is an established scientific paradigm for a growing com
munity of scientists investigating media processes and effects research. The core paradigmatic
assumptions fit very well with a desire to adopt theorizing from evolutionary psychology and biology
in strategic communication because these paradigmatic assumptions are rooted in the more basic
assumption that the human mind is an evolutionarily derived biological physical entity identified as
the human brain and nervous system.
The most basic paradigmatic assumption in media psychophysiology is that the human mind is
embodied in the human brain and nervous system. The implication of this assumption is that all
human experience, including every experience associated with strategic communication processes and
effects, emerges from biological/physiological processes that produce conscious and less conscious
mental experiences, language, and behavior. This assumption ideally can ground theorizing in
strategic communication to begin with a scientific understanding of the anatomy and functioning of
the human brain and nervous system. Strong theorizing can then root theoretical propositions about
strategic communication in the latest scientific understanding of how the minds that create and
respond to messaging by an organization emerge from the human brain and nervous system.
A second paradigmatic assumption in media psychophysiology emphasizes the importance of time
as a concept and variable. This assumption explicitly acknowledges that the work of the human mind/
brain occurs across time. This assumption seems obvious but has crucial implications for theory and
research in any area of communication research. These implications are often ignored by researchers
who only rely on methods that fail to capture across-time mental processes embodied in the brain.
Mental processes that unfold across time as organizations and stakeholders interact in the process of
ideally forming mutually beneficial relationships are ultimately what determines the degree to which
strategic communication campaigns and messages are effective. It stands to reason that theorizing and
research that has the objective of shedding light on ‘effective’ strategic communication needs to
develop theoretical propositions about strategic communication that account for the temporal
dynamics of critical mental processes such as attention, memory, emotion, attitudes, perceptions,
and behavior. It is not adequate to just view these processes through the lens of evolutionary
psychology and biology, but these processes need to be studied as dynamic (with feed-forward and
feed-backward processes) processes that unfold in real-time.
A third important paradigmatic assumption in media psychophysiology is that the relationship
between physiological activity and mental processes must be viewed as correlational and not causal.
Scientists working under this paradigm need to explicate mental processes as mental phenomena that
co-occur with specific patterns of physiological activity. Scientists also need to adopt a constructionist
viewpoint on the relationship between physiological activity and mental experiences in that physio
logical activity is the process through which mental experiences and behaviors that are the focus of
strategic communication theory are constructed into observable concepts.
The media psychophysiology paradigm also contains methodological guidance for researchers. The
most detailed discussion of this topic is provided in chapter seven of Potter’s and Boll’s (2012)
“Psychophysiological Measurement and Meaning.” This guidance is grounded in the assumption that
human nature and experience – as evolved biological entities – produce meaningful data through
physiological activity, language, and behavior. Social scientists who desire to produce the most novel
and non-trivial insights into complex human experiences, such as those relevant to strategic commu
nication, must draw conclusions based on all three forms of data. This means that the media
psychophysiology paradigm emphasizes the importance of a multi-method/measure approach that
incorporates psychophysiological indicators along with self-report and behavioral data.
Researchers who wish to further explore adopting the media psychophysiology paradigm have
numerous ways to learn more about this paradigm and the associated operational procedures in research.
Many of these sources have been cited here. The application of the media psychophysiology paradigm in
media processes and effects research has exploded since the late 1980s when the paradigm was first
adopted by researchers like Annie Lang, a pioneer in this area (Potter & Bolls, 2012). Three decades later
it is time to incorporate this paradigm into strategic communication theory and research as a promising
way forward in embracing evolutionary psychology and biology as suggested in this special issue. Rather
than provide that form of expertise here, we turn to a discussion of two specific theoretical contexts that
serve as promising examples of where the approach we recommend may be promising.
Contexts in evolutionary psychology for media psychophysiology in strategic

Communication
Costly signaling theory and narratives have been widely applied in the fields of strategic communica
tion and media psychology. However, some challenges and barriers have been shown in different
studies in terms of the flaws in methodology. In the following section, we use costly signaling theory
and narratives as two examples and outline why media psychophysiology can be applied to these
examples and advance strategic communication by identifying issues in costly signaling theory and
narrative persuasion studies.
Costly signaling theory and strategic communication from media psychophysiology paradigm
Costly signaling theory explains that animals (including humans) send honest signals through costly
displays and behaviors (e.g., loud voices), and altruistic acts are to signal desirable personal qualities or
resources to position the individual for greater access to resources through direct or indirect
reciprocation (e.g., Nowak & Sigmund, 2005). A signaler attempts to effectively compete with
individuals by establishing altruistic reputations in the eyes of others, as competitive altruism explains
(Barclay & Willer, 2007). This theory, grounded in evolutionary reasoning, applies to strategic
communication processes.
Signals that qualify as a costly signal must be (1) easily observable by others; (2) costly to the actor in
resources, energy, or some other significant domain; (3) a reliable indicator of some characteristic of
the signaler (e.g., health, intelligence, or access to resources); and (4) the behavior in question must
lead to some advantage for the signaler (Smith & Bird, 2000). Costly signaling, not readily explainable
by other mechanisms, occurs in a wide range of social situations.
Costly signaling theory

Costly signaling should be perceived as not too easy to fake and costly to produce. That is, the
assumption of costly signaling is when individuals produce the signal, they genuinely have the
advertised trait. For example, it assumes only genuinely affluent people can afford to purchase luxury
cars or designer brands. When the signal is intrinsically difficult to fake, it will be a stronger costly
signal. If individuals detect dishonesty in signaling, the signaler will be punished. Applying this to
strategic communication, if message recipients perceive dishonesty in costly signaled messages, they
will be motivated to punish the signaler (Przepiorka & Berger, 2017; Searcy & Nowicki, 2005), such as
forming negative attitudes and emotions or being skeptical toward the signaler (e.g., an organization).
Costly signaling can be applied to strategic communication in the context of luxury product
consumption. Sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen coined ‘conspicuous consumption’, refer
ring to the behaviors of people consuming expensive goods even when cheaper functional equivalents
exist to impress others. Humans have an innate preference for associating with wealthy and high-
status people. They are willing to pay a premium to affiliate with them. In other words, people are
willing to pay a premium to signal that they are affluent enough to affiliate with wealthy and high-
status people. It has been documented that people indeed form a favorable attitude toward those with
luxury products. For this reason, organizations have attempted to associate with prestigious images.
Wang and Griskevicius (2014), drawing on both evolutionary and cultural perspectives, found that
conspicuous consumption also plays a vital role in relationships. Women use luxury products as
a signaling system directed at other women when threats to their romantic relationships are posed.
Therefore, individuals strive to enhance their status and protect relationships via costly signaling with
luxury product consumption.
Further, the theory, grounded in evolutionary reasoning, applies to the perception of corporate
social responsibility (CSR) messages. CSR messages may send costly signals to companies and
consumers. Griskevicius et al. (2010) revealed that altruism might function as a ‘costly signal’
associated with status in the context of green product consumption. It showed that status motives
increased the desire for green products when shopping in public (vs. private) and when green products
cost more (vs. less) than non-green products (Griskevicius et al., 2010). Costly signaling and compe
titive altruism explain that individuals attempt to establish altruistic reputations in the eyes of others
(Barclay & Willer, 2007) even when they do not find direct benefits from the original act of altruism
(Bowles & Gintis, 2011). Individuals value future rewards by building altruistic reputations.
Emotion and cognition: media psychophysiology applied to costly signaling theory

Media psychophysiology can be used to test the application of costly signaling theory by indexing
evolutionarily derived cognitive and emotional responses to specific content representing “signals”
under this theory. Prior studies have implied that perceived status increases arousal. Saad (2011) found
that men’s testosterone levels increase in the act of conspicuous consumption (e.g., publicly driving an
expensive Porsche automobile). Therefore, it is plausible that based on the costly signaling theory,
individuals’ arousal levels may vary as they are exposed to costly signaled messages. Prior literature
further implied that increased testosterone levels decrease cognitive empathy (Nadler et al., 2019) and
modulate brain networks that are important for social-emotional processing (Nowak & Sigmund,
2005). However, few studies have examined the costly signaling cues in strategic communication from
the psychophysiology paradigm.
It is also plausible when individuals perceive corporations’ social responsibility messages, their
empathy toward the CSR issue might play a role. In this case, it is unclear how costly signaling with
luxury-cue and prosocial-cue might increase arousal levels differently. How gender plays a role in
processing costly signaling in luxury – and prosocial – consumption settings will also be an important
avenue to explore in the future.
Additionally, perceived honesty in costly signaling might reduce cognitive load, which has not been
investigated from the psychophysiology paradigm. That is, as an individual has a genuine belief, the
person will reap the benefits of automaticity and effortlessness without conscious calculation. This
reduces cognitive load (Trivers, 2002). People’s cognitive load can be reduced while receiving signals
from others because people’s allocation of cognitive resources encoding the signals occurs. Thus, using
psychophysiological measurement can help researchers understand the processing of encoding the
signals from the heart rate indicator. Through the self-report survey, the results can help researchers
understand the effects of signals on reducing cognitive load. As individuals perceive cues that assure
honesty in costly signaling, their cognitive load will decrease. Honesty cues, specific signals that assure
honesty in costly signaling, require stronger, mind science-based concept explications, in strategic
communication research. Based on prior literature, the costly signaling signaler (organization)’s size,
financial resources, and prior reputation of the organization could be important cues, especially in the
context of corporate social responsibility campaigns (e.g., publicity about making a donation to social
causes). As organizations are perceived to hold more resources, reputation, and power, their strategic
communication, including corporate social responsibility communication, might reduce cognitive
load. Individuals might perceive that organizations with significant financial resources might be less
likely to fake their donation statements to non-profit organizations. Their prior reputation in
committing to a social cause they donate to might influence their cognitive process. Even though
their financial resources are high, if their prior commitment level to the cause is low, the vulnerability
to being perceived as ingenuine is high. It should be noted that cognitive load may need to be
measured as a cognitive measure rather than a psychophysiological measure. Therefore, psychophy
siological measures should be utilized along with questionnaire measures.
What types of cues can serve as dishonesty and honesty in strategic communications need to be
understood, and how those can moderate the effects of costly signaling on the emotional and cognitive
responses. For example, dishonesty cues may reduce arousal levels or positive emotions stimulated by
status-costly signaling. In the context of prosocial-related activities, as organizations signal their
prosocial, dishonesty-cue (e.g., paradoxical business conduct regarding the issue in the CSR cam
paigns) might generate even greater negative emotions because they find great inconsistency between
prosocial and dishonesty, more so than in the context of luxury-related activities. These are uncharted
territories that require investigation in the future. Nervous system arousal and emotional responses
could help us to understand underlying mechanisms driven by costly signaling theory. For example,
nervous system arousal, activation within the arousal branch of the human nervous system, can be
examined to study nervous system arousal in response to costly signaled-theme communication
messages (e.g., messages with luxury-status cues or prosocial-status cues) with skin conductance
(Bolls et al., 2019; Potter & Bolls, 2012). In addition, emotional response, an underlying dimension
of emotional valence (positive and negative) reflecting the strength of an aversive or unpleasant
response, can be examined how individuals react when they detect dishonesty in costly signals –
strategic communication messages via facial electromyographic activity (EMG) (measurement of
facial muscle activity), with measurement of activity in the corrugator muscle region (along the
brow) being used to index negative response (Bolls et al., 2019; Potter & Bolls, 2012). More specifically,
three muscles frequently used in communication research to measure valence by placing two small
electrodes close together directly over the muscle group of interest are measured through a process
called EMG. Then, the bioelectrical signals from the motor action units are sampled. Below, the three
muscles are discussed more in detail (Potter & Bolls, 2020):
1. Corrugator supercilii (CORR), located on the forehead just above the eyebrow and toward the
nose, can indicate negative/aversive activation (increased impulses by this muscle group) and
positivity correspondence (decreased activity).
2. Two other muscle groups are primarily associated with appetitive activation.
2a. Zygomaticus major (ZY): ZY, located on the cheek in line with the base of the nose and down
from the outer edge of the eye, pulls the edge of the lips up in a smile.
2b. Orbicularis oculi (OO): OO, located on the lower eyelid just below the pupil, brings a sparkle to
the eye when individuals have a positive experience.
CSR communication has been documented to increase individuals’ emotional and cognitive attach
ment, both negative (skepticism) and positive (e.g., gratitude) with organizations (He et al., 2016). For
example, individuals experience moral emotional processes (Xie et al., 2015) and gratitude in proces
sing CSR communications. Grappi et al. (2013) showed that other-regarding virtues and individual
characteristics relating to consumer other orientation (e.g., social justice values, empathy, relational
self, and collective self) also play a role in CSR communications. Capacity for gratitude is also
associated positively with empathy or perspective-taking (McCullough et al., 2002). Prior literature
also suggests that individuals might attempt to use costly signals through luxury products to avoid
threats (Wang & Griskevicius, 2014). In this case, when individuals’ negative/aversive activations are
captured by CORR or exhibit their altruism to the public (Griskevicius et al., 2010), the expectation of
future rewards (e.g., social recognition) can be captured by OO.
Empathy in response to CSR messages can be also measured by EEG to uncover the neural
mechanisms, a frontal brain area that previous neuroscience research has linked to the affective
empathic response. Companies have also used 360-degree VR videos as storytelling of CSR-related
stories. The recent CSR storytelling examples indicate that future studies will benefit from examining
emotional flow and subsequent persuasive influence.
Heart rates can help to understand what kinds of features of messages can reduce defensive
mechanisms (e.g., skepticism). Psychophysiology measures can be utilized to study how an increased
status can reduce negative responses compared to the condition without status-related features (e.g.,
exhibiting a high price of the products or social media presence (e.g., display of donation amount on
SNSs) in the messages. Reduced defensive mechanisms may direct individuals to more positive
thoughts about a social cause and an organization, which will lead their attention more to further
the social cause and company-related information. Eye-tracking measures could also capture the
tendency to pay more attention to CSR information promoting positive aspects of organizational CSR
initiatives.
Narratives and strategic communication from media psychophysiology paradigm

Two key values: transportation and identification
The narrative is storytelling that “raises unanswered questions, presents unresolved conflicts, or
depicts not yet completed activity; characters may encounter and then resolve a crisis or crises”
(Green & Brock, 2000, p. 701). Narratives have been employed to promote social or individual action
(Zhou & Niederdeppe, 2017) in human communication (LaMarre, 2016). Narratives represent
a crucial communication strategy through which organizations can connect with key stakeholders
with strategic communication campaign messages (Boukes & LaMarre, 2021). Transportation (Green
& Brock, 2000) and identification (De Graaf et al., 2012) are two key relevant variables for narrative
persuasion. People will be persuaded to change their attitudes and behavior through immersion in the
story and characters.
Transportation was defined as “a convergent process, where all mental systems and capacities become
focused on events occurring in the narrative” (Green & Brock, 2000, p.701), so transportation integrates
“attention, imagery, and feelings” (Green & Brock, 2000, p.701). This definition indicates the importance
of understanding how the human brain processes the narratives through the psychophysiology signals,
which can enhance narrative persuasion in strategic communication. However, most narrative studies
(e.g., Green & Brock, 2000; Ooms et al., 2017) have used self-reporting to measure narrative transporta
tion, which contradicts the definition of transportation. Self-reporting requires an individual to engage in
introspection about the nature of mental processes experienced during a stimulus like a story. The data
obtained, at best, indicates a post-hoc conscious interpretation of the experience. Researchers cannot
comprehensively understand how and when people become immersed in stories based only on asking
them to introspectively reflect on their mental processes and report their responses. Some scholars (e.g.,
Ooms et al., 2017) identify transportation as attention-focused transportation to examine the effects of
transportation on narrative persuasion by using self-report. Although the results showed that attention-
focused transportation plays a significant role in the processing of narrative fear appeals, the results
cannot explain when and how people pay attention to and immerse in the stories across time. Also, the
results cannot identify the features of the stories that evoke people’s attention and feelings. To echo the
definition of transportation involving mental systems and capacities, the psychophysiology approach,
such as heart rate and skin conductance, can help us understand the relationship between people’s
cognitive and emotional processing and features of narratives that can advance the persuasion outcomes
in strategic communication. The variations in heart rate and skin conductance reflect how people encode
and affectively respond to stories that indicate their cognitive and emotional engagement in the stories,
which in turn, influence the strategic communication outcomes.
Cohen (2001) conceptualized identification as “focusing on sharing the perspective of the character
and feeling with the character, rather than about the character” (p. 251), so identification involves “the
knowledge of audience members is processed from the character’s perspective and is transformed into
empathic emotions” (Cohen, 2001, p. 251). Thus, identification involves the mental process, including
cognitive and emotional engagement. However, most narrative studies examining the effect of
identification fail to explain when and how identification takes place when people experience
narratives due to the methodological flaw of relying on self-reporting exclusively. Specifically, since
identification is the transformation of empathic emotions from the characters, it is important to
understand when and how empathic emotions are evoked by the features of narratives during the
processes. According to the assumptions of the psychophysiology paradigm, “all forms of human
mental activity exist in the brain, are observable through brain and body, and unfold across time”
(Bolls et al., 2019, p. 198). Therefore, measuring human mental activity across time as
a psychophysiology paradigm (Bolls et al., 2019) can help strategic communication scholars and
practitioners answer the questions about how and when identification takes place which can benefit
them design persuasive campaigns with narratives.
In sum, regarding the media psychophysiology paradigm, facial EMG and skin conductance
have been used successfully to measure affective responses to message content, and heart rate has
been used to assess attention (Bolls et al., 2001; Hazlett & Hazlett, 1999; Lee & Shin, 2011). The
variations in these physiological results can indicate when and how people cognitively and
emotionally immerse into stories and characters as well as how they allocate cognitive resources
to encode the stories across real-time. In addition, regarding the literature on attention, eye-
tracking helps researchers uncover the unobservable mental process (Van der Lans et al., 2008) and
conscious attention to the psychological processes in real time (Boshoff & Toerien, 2017; Kroeber-
Riel, 1979). According to the concept of joint attention (Tomasello, 1995), we argue that eye-
tracking can also help researchers discover how characters’ mental activity interacts with viewers’
selective and intentional attention to the narratives and understanding of the environment through
their shared gaze. Conscious attention can help strategic communication scholars understand the
relationship between the features of narratives (e.g., characters) and identification while people
view and experience narratives.
Embodied empathetic emotion on narrative persuasion

Empathy is defined as an involuntary emotional response that corresponds to what another person is
experiencing (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). Empathy as perspective-taking emotion can facilitate persua
sion when people imagine themselves in similar situations by involving the stories and recognizing
characters (Shen, 2010; Wirtz et al., 2016). Thus, empathy includes two dimensions: emotion and
cognition. Some scholars also proposed three core dimensions of state empathy that include affective,
cognitive, and associative empathy to understand the role of empathy in processing messages (Shen,
2010). Affective empathy is activated when people experience affective reactions to others’ experiences
and/or emotional expressions, which means the understanding and sharing of others’ feelings (Decety
& Jackson, 2006; Shen, 2010; Zillmann, 2006). Cognitive empathy means ‘perspective-taking’ and
involves “recognizing, comprehending, and adopting another person’s point of view” (Shen, 2010,
p. 506). Associative empathy refers to inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism (Preston & de Waal,
2002; Shen, 2010) and was labeled as identification (e.g., Campbell & Babrow, 2004; Chory-Assad &
Cicchirillo, 2005; Shen, 2010). Identification with characters in narratives represents that people
experience reception and interpretation of the messages from the inside as if the events or situations
in the message were happening to them (Cohen, 2001, 2006; Shen, 2010). These statements indicate
that empathy is multi-dimensional and that the content of narratives is important for identification,
the feeling of situations, and empathetic response.
Processing narratives evokes a greater emotional response, including empathic concern (Shen et al.,
2014; Wald et al., 2021), which can further enhance the persuasion outcomes due to two key values of
transportation and identification. However, these previous studies use the self-report survey to
measure people’s empathic response to health messages with storytelling (e.g., McKeever, 2015;
Shen et al., 2014; Wald et al., 2021), so the results can be impacted by social desirability bias. To
overcome this bias, researchers need to find an innovative way to truly discover how people’s
embodied empathetic emotion is aroused and changed over time while processing the messages
with storytelling.
To better understand narrative persuasion, recently scholars across disciplines in the field of
neuroscience have started discovering the activation in the brain when people feel empathy (Clair
et al., 2016) as well as discovering empathetic arousal in terms of heart rate when people process
narratives (Correa et al., 2015). Through the variations of embodied empathetic emotional responses
from psychophysiology indicators across real-time, the results can help strategic communication
scholars understand how people’s minds interact with narratives and how they feel the stories,
which can advance the persuasion of strategic communication. In addition, empathy is a multi-
component phenomenon and comprises related but distinct sub-processes, including experience
sharing, mentalizing, and empathic concern in terms of the mapping of the brain from neuroscientists
(Weisz & Zaki, 2018). The psychophysiology study on empathy also found that facing others’ distress
in an affective empathy environment enhanced physiological synchrony, such as higher empathetic
responses from facial expressions (Cohen et al., 2021; Dor‐Ziderman et al., 2021). These studies
address the questions about how messages implementing narratives enhance viewers’ psychophysio
logical arousal and responses of embodied empathy, cognitive attention, and visual attention in the
sense of the need to discover. Through specific patterns of nervous system activity in the brain and
body (Bolls et al., 2019), the variation in mental processes across time can help us answer the question
of how and when empathetic emotion is evoked as an indicator of immersing in the characters and
stories as well as how the emotional and cognitive processes about empathy impact people’s decision-
making during viewing narratives.
Emotional flow on narrative persuasion

Due to narratives involving a series of emotional shifts over the story, Nabi and Green (2015) argue
about emotional flow as a key component of narrative engagement and subsequent persuasive
influence. Emotional flow is defined as “the evolution of the emotional experience during exposure
to a media message, which is marked by a series of emotional shifts” (Nabi & Green, 2015, p. 143).
Thus, by definition, emotional flow involves the change of emotion across real-time and is impacted
by each situation and feature of messages. Nabi and Green (2015) further stated that the emotional
shifts include “from negative to positive, from positive to negative, and from one negative or one
positive emotional state to another of a similar valence” (p. 143). Viewers’ emotional shifts can be an
indicator of their mental processes for transportation and identification while they experience the
narratives. One of the studies applied the emotional flow to examine how health messages of fear
appeal with an efficacy component played a role to change people’s emotions from negative emotions
(e.g., fear) to positive emotions (e.g., hope) about sun safety intention and behavior (Nabi & Myrick,
2019). The findings supported that fear and hope were associated and feeling of hope was elicited while
viewing fear appeal messages with efficacy components (Nabi & Myrick, 2019). However, Nabi and
Myrick’s (2019) study used the self-report to measure the outcomes, so the results cannot answer the
question of why emotional shifts occur and how variations of emotional changes influence people’s
decision-making. Emotional flow involves information unfolds and the process of appraisal and
reappraisal of environmental stimuli across persuasive messages and audiences (Nabi, 2015; Nabi &
Myrick, 2019), indicating the emotional and cognitive processes. Thus, according to the assumptions
of the psychophysiology paradigm (Bolls et al., 2019), it is important to measure the real-time
emotional response while people process the narratives. The variations of the emotional changes
across time provide a better understanding of how narratives impact persuasion outcomes in strategic
communication. In addition, the nature of the psychophysiology paradigm is to measure the uncon
scious cognitive and emotional responses from people’s minds and bodies, so using this methodology
approach to measure emotional change can reduce the influence of individual differences and personal
traits.
Methodology of psychophysiology approach to advance strategic communication

Physiological indicators of embodied motivated processes reflect mental processes (e.g., emotional and
cognitive processes) during exposure to media messages. This approach is known as media psycho
physiology (Bolls et al., 2019). Specific psychophysiological indicators have been validated under the
psychophysiological paradigm (Cacioppo et al., 2007) to measure emotion, cognition, and attention.
Facial EMG and skin conductance have been used successfully to measure affective responses to
message content, and heart rate has been used to assess attention (Bolls et al., 2001; Hazlett & Hazlett,
1999; Lee & Shin, 2011). The results from these indicators can help us understand when and how
people are persuaded by strategic message content, such as narratives. For instance, the variations of
facial expressions from different muscle regions (e.g., corrugator supercilii, orbicularis oculi, and
zygomaticus major) indicate when and how people immerse in the characters as identification. The
variations of facial expressions can also present emotional shifts when people experience the strategic
content. The variations in skin conductance can indicate the level of viewers’ emotional engagement
with the story events and characters while processing the strategic message content. Also, the
variations in heart rate indicate the level of viewers’ immersion in the situations and cognitive
resources from the process of encoding new information. The variations from these psychophysiology
indicators also correspond to the three assumptions of the psychophysiology paradigm (Bolls et al.,
2019) that human mental activity exists and processes in the brain across time as an “individual
perceives and responds to a stimulus” (Bolls et al., 2019, p. 198). The results can help strategic
communication scholars and practitioners design better messages to communicate with their
stakeholders.
Eye-tracking is considered “the thought on top of the stack of cognitive processes” (Poole & Ball,
2006, p. 213). Eye-tracking helps researchers understand the unobservable mental process (Van der
Lans et al., 2008) and understand the relationship between the conscious eye-fixation of participants
and their subsequent activation and attention levels for the psychological processes in real-time
(Boshoff & Toerien, 2017; Kroeber-Riel, 1979). Several metrics have been used to measure eye
movements and their relationship with encoding information, information processes, and information
search. First, fixations are “moments when the eyes are relatively stationary, taking in or encoding
information” (Poole & Ball, 2006, p. 213). Areas of interest over certain parts of a display are used to
measure fixations. Higher fixation frequency on a specific area(s) indicates greater interest in the target
or more difficulty to encode the target (Jacob & Karn, 2003; Just & Carpenter, 1976; Poole & Ball,
2006). The duration of fixation is related to the processing time applied to the object being fixated (Just
& Carpenter, 1976; Poole & Ball, 2006), so the longer fixation duration indicates difficulty in extracting
information or higher engagement (Poole & Ball, 2006). Faster times to first fixation on an object or
area means better attention-getting properties (Poole & Ball, 2006). Second, regressive saccades (e.g.,
backtracking eye movements) can measure the processing difficulty during encoding (Poole & Ball,
2006; Rayner & Pollatsek, 1989). Thus, the fixations and regressive saccades can help us understand
what and how features of strategic messages evoke people’s attention and cognitive load of processing
information processing across real-time. In addition, using co-registration of multiple measures can
disambiguate cognitive function at different levels. The results can benefit organizations in building
positive relationships with their stakeholders and provide social good.
Appropriate psychophysiology tool to investigate strategic communication research

The nature of the psychophysiology approach reveals human mental activity in the brain. Through
unfolding human mental activity across time, it can help us understand how human cognitively (e.g.,
heart rate and eye-tracking) and emotionally (e.g., skin conductance and facial EMG) respond to the
strategic media content in real time. Thus, the results can help strategic communication scholars and
practitioners better design and tailor messages. More importantly, the psychophysiology approach can
help construct persuasive storylines that can enhance narrative engagement (e.g., transportation and
identification) and persuasion outcomes in terms of variations of psychophysiology results. The
variations of skin conductance and facial EMG can help us understand when emotional changes
occur and how emotional shifts impact the persuasion outcomes across real-time, which echoes Nabi
and Green’s (2015) argument about emotional flow as a key component of narrative engagement and
subsequent persuasive influence. Monitoring of heart rate and eye-tracking can help us understand the
across-real-time processes of transportation and identification as two key values for narratives (De
Graaf et al., 2012; Green & Brock, 2000) in terms of the levels of attention and encoding process. By
mapping specific patterns of nervous system activity onto specific mental processes (Bolls et al., 2019),
the results can provide scientific evidence of how variations of mental activities are impacted by
strategic media content and influence persuasion outcomes. Using multi-channels of psychophysiol
ogy can provide insights into how cognitive and emotional processes impact the persuasion outcomes
of narratives in different files of communication.
Conclusion
According to the nature of the psychophysiology approach and paradigm (Bolls et al., 2019), we
suggest that future studies should integrate multi-channels to examine how the human mind processes
the strategic media content in order to comprehensively understand the impact of emotional and
cognitive processes on persuasion outcomes. To advance strategic communication, future studies also
need to include multi-methods (e.g., psychophysiology, survey, interview, etc.) to comprehensively
understand why and when human mental processes occur and how they impact emotional responses,
cognitive function, and decision-making outcomes, such as visual attention, cognitive load, memory,
emotions, and loyalty, acceptance. In addition, future studies applying costly signaling theory and
narratives should focus on the influence of cognitive and emotional processes while people are
exposed to media content. This paper also proposed that future studies consider how cognitive and
emotional processes may change based on boundary contexts. For example, costly signaling cues’
effects on the processes might vary based on the evaluation of the signaler’s genuine intentions.
Individual differences or cultural contexts have rarely been studied in understanding emotional and
cognitive mechanisms from psychophysiology perspectives. Strategic communication mechanisms

grounded in evolutionary psychology, such as prosocialcostly signaling in communication, need to be
investigated from a media psychophysiological paradigm, which will shed new light on strategic
communication, such as CSR communication. Also, according to the psychophysiology paradigm,
future studies should discover the emotional features in narrative content and examine how emotional
shifts from the human brain across time impact narrative engagement in strategic communication.
Thus, the findings can advance these theories in strategic communication and provide insights into
practices.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Media Psychophysiology and Strategic Communications: A Scientiﬁc

Article in International Journal of Strategic Communication · October 2023

Yen-I Lee Yoon-Joo Lee

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Media Psychophysiology and Strategic

Yen-I Lee, Yoon-Joo Lee & Paul D. Bolls

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Westphal, J. (2016). The Mind-Body Problem. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10776.001.0001

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