News Release

Psychological targeting and mass persuasion

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

According to a series of experiments that reached more than 3.5 million people, Facebook ad campaigns targeted toward users' levels of extraversion or openness-to-experience, as estimated from Facebook Likes, resulted in up to 1.4 times as many clicks and up to 1.5 times as many product purchases as nontargeted or mistargeted ad campaigns, suggesting the effectiveness of psychological targeting in influencing the behavior of large groups of people.

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Article #17-10966: "Psychological targeting as an effective approach to digital mass persuasion," by Sandra C. Matz, Michael Kosinski, Gideon Nave, and David J. Stillwell.

MEDIA CONTACT: Sandra C. Matz, Columbia Business School, New York, NY; tel: 347-978-6326; e-mail: <sm4409@gsb.columbia.edu>


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