This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: On a Monday night in September 1964, television viewers watched a little girl counting petals on a flower. Her voice gave way to a man counting down, and then a nuclear blast filled the screen.
The ad ran as a paid spot only once, in support of President Lyndon B. Johnson's reelection campaign. It never mentioned his opponent, Republican Barry Goldwater.
The ad played on a fear voters already held, that Goldwater might start a nuclear war. Republicans protested loudly, Democrats pulled the spot, and the uproar got it rebroadcast in full on network news. I study how emotional appeals persuade, from how viewers' moods shape their reactions to political ads to how anxiety drives people to seek out, and sometimes fail to absorb, information about threats.
The LBJ "Daisy" ad shows why political campaigns to this day continue to reach for fear, and it hints at why the payoff is less predictable than you might think. It tells you something threatening is close. You feel scared when you believe you are at risk from something dangerous that can hurt you.
Anxiety knocks people off autopilot, sharpens attention and sends them looking for new information. That heightened attentiveness may be exactly what a struggling campaign wants. When political scientists Travis Ridout and Kathleen Searles tracked Senate ads from 2004, they found that front-runners often leaned on enthusiasm and pride in their messaging, while candidates who were behind leaned on fear and anger.
During the 1998 Massachusetts governor's race, political scientist Ted Brader ran a study that embedded campaign ads in a news broadcast and changed only the music and images, keeping the words identical. Those changes produced completely different reactions. When a negative ad paired grainy black-and-white images of drug use with tense music, viewers paid closer attention to the spoken message and became more open to reconsidering their chosen candidate.
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