The case against subliminal manipulation

Claims persist that subliminal messages can have significant effects on motives and behavior. Among the more dramatic declarations are claims that: (1) subliminal auditory messages can induce weight loss, smoking cessation, etc., (2) reversed speech messages in popular music can corrupt youthful listeners, (3) psychotherapy can be facilitated by the subliminal stimulation of unconscious wishes, and (4) advertisers can exploit consumers by means of subliminal directives. A review of the pertinent research purporting to demonstrate these claims was conducted. It is concluded that there continues to be no evidence that subliminal messages can influence motivation or complex behavior.     

Why marketing should quit giving subliminal advertising the benefit of the doubt

The popular belief in subliminal advertising has remained robust in spite of the fact that advertising professionals almost universally discount it as a practical technique. The current psychological theories of Silverman [Silverman, L. H. (1976). Psychoanalytic theory: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. American Psychologist, 31 (Sept.), 621–637] and his colleagues provide a conceptual basis for how changes in behavior might result from subliminal stimulation. However, the theory specifies stimulus conditions which make it highly unlikely that successful use of subliminal messages could be achieved in a promotional context. In light of Silverman's theories, even two recent demonstrations of subliminal effects in the advertising literature fail to enhance the credibility of subliminal advertising as a professional tool.     

Telecommunications in the Information Age. Singleton,Loy A. Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1983, 239 pp. $19.95

Abstract

A telephone survey was conducted among a national probability sample of 330 adults to determine consumer attitudes toward the use of subliminal stimulation techniques in a self-improvement product. Additionally, those most favorable toward the product concept were profiled. The study found consumers to be skeptical toward the use of subliminal messages for the purpose of self-improvement and concerned about being influenced to do something they did not want to do. Those consumers most favorable toward the subliminal technique had prior experience with computers and video equipment, were less educated, and had some family problems. Comparisons are made with prior studies of consumer attitudes toward subliminal advertising.     

Nonconscious memory processes in marketing: A historical perspective and future directions

Nonconscious memory processes play a major role in influencing consumption, yet this topic is an understudied area within marketing. Within the general rubric of nonconscious processes recent marketing articles have focused on preconscious processing of advertising, implicit memory for brand names, and subliminal processing and choice. This article provides a historical overview of nonconsciousness by tracing its development in psychology and philosophy. Building on current work in this area, future research priorities are identified to enhance our understanding of this topic. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

An investigation of subliminal embed effect on multiple measures of advertising effectiveness

The effect of subliminal sex and death embeds on attention to advertising, change in attitude, behavioral intention, and day-after recall of advertising were investigated for two products. Contrary to findings in some previous research, no significant effects were indicated in the current study at any level. A review and comparison to previous research is provided, along with a possible explanation for conflicting research findings in the area.     

Subliminal Advertising and the Perpetual Popularity of Playing to People’s Paranoia

Every 20 years, subliminal advertising pops back into popular culture. August Bullock (2004a) is the most recent “advocate” with his book The Secret Sales Pitch: An Overview of Subliminal Advertising. This paper reviews nearly 50 years of research on subliminal advertising and comments specifically about Bullock’s more recent publication. The literature repeatedly shows that most effects are only obtained in highly artificial situations, and no research has shown an effect that changed attitudes or impacted purchasing behavior.     

Subliminal auditory messages: An evaluation

Audio cassettes claimed by distributors to contain subliminal messages embedded within background sounds are currently-widely marketed and advertized. Although subliminal perception has generated considerable controversy for many years, recent research suggests that subliminal perception does occur when subjects can detect the presence of a stimulus but have no confidence that a stimulus was even presented. Given that the minimal stimulus condition for subliminal perception is stimulus detection, the subliminal audio cassettes marketed by several distributors were evaluated to determine if this condition was satisfied. Spectrographic analyses indicated that no identifiable speech is contained within the background sounds. In addition, using cassettes supplied by a major distributor, listeners could not distinguish between “signal” and “placebo” cassettes in a forced choice detection task. On the basis of these results, the only reasonable conclusion is that these audio cassettes do not contain any embedded subliminal messages that could conceivably influence behavior.     

Rejoinder

Abstract

Studies investigating subliminal stimulation have generally held that such procedures are ineffective in an advertising context. This article provides a new outlook based on right brain processing. Evidence is presented that indicates that subliminal stimulation has impact when the stimulus is selected based upon the model presented.     

广告传播模式的变革:从显意识传播到潜意识传播

网络广告的出现使得中国广告传播模式发生了巨大的变革：传统的显意识传播逐渐被潜意识传播所代替。潜意识广告大致有五种类型：快速切换、背景反转、植入／置入、双关、声光学处理。随着认知神经技术在广告中的应用,以FMRI为代表的技术,使得潜意识广告的效果测量成为可能,尽管存在一系列道德上的争议。     

A meta-analysis of consumer choice and subliminal advertising

A meta-analysis is used to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of subliminal advertising to influence the consumer's decision between alternatives. A review of narrative reviews is provided to illustrate that sample size and effect size is seldom used as the basis for evaluating whether subliminal marketing stimuli are an effective means for influencing consumer choice behavior. The results of the meta-analysis indicate that there is very little effect. The resulting coefficient had a value r=0.0585, which places the effectiveness of subliminal advertising on choice between the impact of aspirin on heart attacks and the relationship between alcohol abuse and a tour of duty in Vietnam (Rosenthal, 1990). © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Subliminal advertising and the psychology of processing unconscious stimuli: A review of research

This article reviews progress to date on research on the effects of subliminal stimulation on subject populations and potential applications to persuasive communications. Three areas of inquiry covered in the literature include psychological, physiological, and behavioral (choice) responses, the last of which is of particular interest to advertising and marketing specialists. The article identifies several fruitful areas for continued research and experimentation, especially in areas of social marketing research. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Review and appraisal of subliminal perception within the context of signal detection theory

There are many claims that stimuli too weak to be detected can affect behavior in powerful ways. There are also many counterclaims that such phenomena are artifacts. The origins of the subliminal perception controversy are traced and some of the problems with the concepts of threshold and awareness are noted. It is suggested that any treatment of the phenomenon must consider the implications of Signal Detection Theory. The basic concepts of the theory are reviewed and the controversy is translated into its terminology. Some studies on masked-primes are summarized and evaluated within that context. While It is possible to obtain an effect for primes that are below a level of claimed awareness, such a subjective definition of the threshold is often problematic, because it confounds stimulus detectability with response bias. When an objective definition is adopted (i.e., d' = O), and proper psychophysical methods are followed, there is no support for the effectiveness of undetectable stimuli. Lastly, a recent approach is briefly described which uses phenomenal awareness as a basis for distinguishing between conscious and unconscious perceptual processes.     

Sovereign credit ratings, emerging market risk and financial market volatility

This article presents event studies that find a significant effect on dollar bond yield spreads when rating agencies put emerging-market sovereign bonds on review with negative outlook. The finding has two conditional implications. If rating agencies can be turned from late into early warning signals, they would have the potential to dampen boom-bust cycles in emerging-market flows. If rating agencies cannot improve on their reactive approach witnessed in the run-up and aftermath of recent currency crises, regulation and guidelines stipulating a certain rating status for institutional investment will continue to intensify boom-bust cycles. The paper concludes with regulatory suggestions for both outcomes.     

Can the standard international business cycle model explain the relation between trade and comovement?

Recent empirical research finds that pairs of countries with stronger trade linkages tend to have more highly correlated business cycles. We assess whether the standard international business cycle framework can replicate this intuitive result. We employ a three-country model with transportation costs. We simulate the effects of increased goods market integration under two asset market structures, complete markets and international financial autarky. Our main finding is that under both asset market structures the model can generate stronger correlations for pairs of countries that trade more, but the increased correlation falls far short of the empirical findings. Even when we control for the fact that most country-pairs are small with respect to the rest-of-the-world, the model continues to fall short. We also conduct additional simulations that allow for increased trade with the third country or increased TFP shock comovement to affect the country-pair's business cycle comovement. These simulations are helpful in highlighting channels that could narrow the gap between the empirical findings and the predictions of the model.     

Synchronised Business Cycles in East Asia and Fluctuations in the Yen/Dollar Exchange Rate

Because many authors have proposed stimulating the ailing Japanese economy by monetary expansion and yen depreciation, we explore the repercussions of depreciating the yen against the dollar on the other East Asian economies – which largely peg to the dollar. Since 1980, economic integration among Japan's neighbours – China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – has intensified and (except for China and Singapore) their business cycles have been highly synchronised. These cycles have been closely linked to fluctuations in the yen/dollar exchange rate – through changes in the export competitiveness, inflows of foreign direct investment and intra‐Asian income effects. We show that a major yen devaluation would have a negative impact on incomes in other East Asian economies and that it is not a sensible policy option for Japan.     

The political and legal determinants of venture capital investments around the world

This paper investigates the political and legal determinants of cross-country differences in venture capital (VC) investments. Our results show strong and positive effects of a favorable sociopolitical and entrepreneurial environment on the inception and development of VC investment activity. Controlling for effects due to the legal system prevailing in each country, we find strong evidence that this factor plays an important role in explaining cross-sectional variance. This result conveys important normative implications: entrepreneurship and innovation benefit significantly from an active VC industry, which also allows the ignition of virtuous cycles. Activating this cycle, though, relies on some socioeconomic prerequisites that government and institutions should primarily address.     

The effectiveness of post-release movie advertising

Frequent new product introductions and short product life cycles lead to unusually high levels of advertising in the movie industry. We study the effectiveness of television advertisements aired after the theatrical opening of a motion picture (‘post-release advertising’). We estimate an instrumental variables, lagged effects model using a novel dataset constructed to obviate simultaneity concerns and temporal aggregation biases. We find that post-release movie advertising exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity across films, but generates substantial returns for some movies. Our findings suggest that studios may find it beneficial to experiment with higher post-release advertising budgets. Further, exhibitors may benefit from extended movie life cycles if they share post-release advertising responsibility with studios.     

The welfare effects of business-cycle-induced immigration

Despite the fact that migration flows have always been closely related to business cycles, the effects of immigration are typically analysed in models without economic fluctuations. In this paper, we find that the welfare consequences of business-cycle-induced immigration are very different from the consequences of permanent immigration in a static economy. Specifically, the welfare effects depend crucially on (1) the return rate of immigrants in downturns and (2) the costs of recruiting immigrants. This has important consequences for the optimal design of temporary immigration programmes to deal with labour shortages.     

A dual‐sequence framework for B2C relationship formation: Moderating effects of employee communication style in online group chat

Past research on B2C relationships has typically focused on unidimensional constructs of satisfaction, trust, and commitment, ignoring underlying psychological dimensions. Although some studies have examined cognitive and affective dimensions of these relational constructs, dual sequential effects in relationship formation have not been investigated. This study proposes and finds (in the context of online group chat) that parallel cognitive and affective sequences of relationship formation take place, thus expanding scholarly understanding of underlying psychological processes and offering marketing practitioners two different ways to build relationships with consumers. The proposed dual‐sequence relational framework further advances theory by shedding light on counterintuitive findings in past research. The study also supports the proposed moderating effects of employee communication style, such that sequential effects of cognitive (affective) relational constructs are stronger with a task‐oriented (socially oriented) employee, thus offering insights to practitioners in hiring and training employees to match specific organizational goals for building relationships with consumers. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The attribution of service failures: effects on consumer satisfaction

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of the attribution of service failures on consumer satisfaction. We analysed direct effects as well as indirect effects through cognitive processes and variables such as quality perceptions and overall quality evaluation. Basing the analysis on the attribution theories and information processing theories, four hypotheses are suggested. These are tested on a sample of 293 service encounters in which some type of failure is present (attributed to the firm or to some environmental factor). The results show that the attribution of the failure to the service firm causes a systematic reduction in all of the quality perceptions (even in service aspects not linked to the failure). But attribution also shows direct effects on satisfaction beyond the effect through perceptions. Attitude-based processes as well as attribute-based processes are affected by attribution.