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Yes. Take it from the guy who helped design the very software that targets you. Christopher Wylie worked for Cambridge Analytica and I recall reading from his book that psychographics are definitely taken into account when targeting people with political advertisements; I am sure that this applies to ads for consumer goods. In an excerpt in the book, the author discusses how there are 5 psychographic "categories" that are taken into account when selecting which ads to show to people. "militarism" — guns and shooting, martial arts, crossbows, and knives
"violent occultism" — drugs, black magic, paganism
"intellectual activities" — singing and making music, foreign travel, the environment
"credulousness" — the paranormal, flying saucers
"wholesome interests" — camping, gardening, hill-walking Individuals are also rated on openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. The idea is that with the massive amounts of data one produces from surfing the Web or even merely being online, the software can decide which ads to show to which type of person. Do they engage in "violent occultism" and "credulousness" such as unironically browsing and discussing ideas in QAnon forums? Well, they're probably likely to engage with and respond to political advertisements, so the algorithm feeds them political advertisements on the assumption that they will engage. (This is a cloudy example, but the idea remains. Data that is remotely useful will be used. This is Big Data.) I think what is interesting to note is that in their research/experiments, they've specifically targeted the Incel community specifically for this reason. Demographically speaking, Incels are typically young adult males "who can't get laid" (verbatim) and are highly susceptible to targeted advertising. If you want to read more about this, there is a book written about how Cambridge Analytica helped Donald Trump win the 2016 US elections by Christopher Wylie. I highly recommend it. |