Subliminal Political Messages: Science Sensei 10

But whether or not this kind of subliminal trickery is effective has been a matter of debate. And the term "subliminal" can refer to a lot of things: clever product placement, very fast flash frames, words hidden in a picture of something, and so on. But now a team led by cognitive scientist Ran Hassin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Psychology Department has shown that some thoughts and behaviors can be affected subconsciously and subliminally by commonly used symbols.

In the study, they asked Israeli volunteers to complete a computer-based survey about their opinions on core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But for half of the volunteers, subliminal images of the Israeli flag were flashed throughout the question and answer session. The flashes lasted 16 milliseconds or 0.016 seconds – too fast for the volunteers to consciously notice the image. Participants were also given a test to rate them on an "Identification With Israeli Nationalism" (IWIN) scale, designed to identify their position on the national political spectrum.

The results were clear. The image of the flag, though unnoticed on the conscious level, caused the test group to respond differently from controls who were not exposed to the subliminal image.

Although you might expect that exposure to such a strong, nationalistic image would polarize people to one political extreme or the other, in this case the subliminal image of the flag pulled people in the test from both ends of the political spectrum toward the middle compared to the control group. In the control group that was not exposed to the subliminal image, for instance, people low on the IWIN scale "strongly supported the formation of a Palestinian state", while people high on the IWIN scale "strongly objected" to it. In the test group, people from both high and low on the IWIN scale exposed to the subliminal image answered moderately. In fact the difference in their responses became negligible.

Put it to a Vote

The researchers then conducted more or less the same study just before Israel's general elections.
Similar to the other study, those who were exposed to the subliminal flag expressed an intention to vote for more moderate parties than the control group. Researchers followed up with calls to the participants to see how they voted. Even though elections were days after the experiment was conducted, the participants who were exposed to the flag subliminally actually voted on average more moderately. In fact, they showed an 88 percent reduction in the gap between the political extremes.

As they wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers suggest that as a unifying symbol for the country, the flag might influence people to vote for more moderate policies, ones that build consensus. But politics aside, this research is important because it shows that subliminal messages can affect your attitude and behavior.

Legendary Beginnings

While it would be hard to say he "invented" subliminal ads, the granddaddy of subliminal pitchmen is marketing researcher James Vicary. In 1957, he conducted a (now legendary) experiment in which he projected the words "Hungry? Eat popcorn" and "Drink Coke" during movies for one-three thousandth of a second. It required a special projection device called a "tachistoscope". The commands appeared so briefly that moviegoers didn't notice the information consciously. Vicary claimed that due to their unconscious processing of the messages, customers bought on average 18 percent more Coke and 57 percent more popcorn during the six-week test period.

But Vicary eventually admitted that he fabricated the results to promote his marketing company. Still, the ruse stirred up so much public outrage that the idea lives on in the popular mythos. Fearing a possible real effect of this insidious technique, the FCC outlawed subliminal advertising in 1974.

Advertisers have used subliminal images and messages in print ads in the decades since. Two influential mainstream books on the subject are Vance Packard's 1957 The Hidden Persuaders and Wilson B. Key's 1973 Subliminal Seduction, which created broad public awareness of the practice.