People Believing Lies

People are gullible. They are especially gullible for some lie that confirms their suspicions. Here is a bit from a posting by Romeo Vitelli, a Canadian psychologist, on his blog Providentia. Here he takes on the history of subliminal advertising, exposes its fakery, but points out that the truth coming out 48 years ago, some people still believe in the "power" of subliminal advertising:

Conspiracy theorists accused governments and corporations of manipulating popular opinion through "brainwashing". The National Association of Broadcasters formally banned subliminal advertising in 1958 and all American television networks quickly followed suit. Legislation banning subliminal advertising was later passed in the U.K. and Australia and civil rights groups pounced on all suspected uses of subliminal messages in ads (real or imagined).

On the other hand, researchers who tried to replicate Vicary's research weren't getting the same results. Vicary had been extremely ambiguous about the actual methodology that he used made which true replication of his method impossible. It also didn't help that operational definitions of what could be considered "subliminal stimuli" varied widely . In an attempt at replicating his own results, Vicary carried out a 1958 study using a Canadian television broadcast in which the words "Telephone now" were flashed 352 times during a half-hour show. There was no noticeable increase in telephone use during or after the broadcast (although the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did get thousands of letters from viewers guessing at the nature of the subliminal message, nobody got the right answer). Other research studies were just as inconclusive. Vicary's Subliminal Projection Company quickly went out of business and he returned to being a media researcher for Dunn and Bradstreet. In a 1962 interview, Vicary admitted that the news conference and his research findings had been nothing more than a "gimmick". As he ruefully added in the interview, "All I accomplished, I guess,...was to put a new word into common usage. And for a man who makes a career out of picking the right names for products and companies, I should have my head examined for using a word like subliminal".

Despite Vicary's confession, the supposed dangers of subliminal advertising still lurk in the popular imagination and has taken on the status of an urban legend. While there is no actual evidence that subliminal messaging works, anecdotes about its supposed effectiveness abound. Not only are "subliminal" self-help tapes still being sold, but opinion surveys have shown that belief in subliminal advertising is widespread. This belief is especially apparent in allegations of "backward masking" of satanic messages in rock music, a claim that is still a common staple in conservative circles. A 1990 trial in Reno, Nevada was held in which the parents of two teenagers blamed their suicides on subliminal messaging in a Judas Priest album. The parents lost the case but the resulting publicity added to the "anecdotal evidence" of subliminal advertising's widespread use.

Meanwhile, laws against subliminal advertising remains on the books in many countries and research still continues (albeit without conclusive results). Despite the lack of success, the subliminal tape industry continues to do good business as well. Such is the power of advertising.