Is Preaching Effective?

If you follow this blog, you've noticed that I have been looking a lot at brain science. I'm fascinated by the way the brain works. Recently there has emerged a new field known as neuro-marketing. Researchers use different brain scanning techniques to determine how people respond to different products. Martin Lindstrom wrote a book called Buyology about the topic.

One of the things that researchers are finding is that the results of traditional marketing can vary greatly from what our brains are actually telling us. We may say that we like something in a focus group, but our opinion is formed by group dynamic as much as by whether we like cheesy poofs dipped in chocolate.

So, how do we know if preaching is effective? We could have focus groups where people report on their opinion. We could send out surveys asking questions to determine the state of things. But what if we started using current science to see what's happening in people's brains?