Emotions Can Be Unconsciously And Subliminally
Evoked
April 29, 2008
Most people agree that emotions can be caused by a specific event and that the
person experiencing it is aware of the cause, such as a child's excitement at
the sound of an ice cream truck. But recent research suggests emotions also can
be unconsciously evoked and manipulated.
Psychologists Kirsten Ruys and Diedrick Stapel of the Tilburg Institute for
Behavioral Economics Research at Tillburg University in The Netherlands have
uncovered the first empirical evidence to suggest humans do not need to be aware
of the event that caused their mood or feelings in order to be affected by it.
The scientists hypothesized that, since humans have evolved to respond quickly
and unconsciously to stimuli, they should be able to react to an emotional event
without full awareness: "You are likely to live longer if you immediately
stop moving at the sight of a growling grizzly bear and do not need full
awareness for such a response to be instigated," explained Ruys and Stapel.
The researchers measured people's thoughts, feelings and behavior to determine
whether specific emotions were induced without awareness of their causes - a
study based on the theory implying that, due to natural selection, humans should
be able to detect specific emotion-evoking information automatically.
Participants were separated into three groups and were told that very short
flashes would appear on a computer screen. They were then instructed to press
the 'R' key if it appeared on the right side of the screen or the 'L' key if it
appeared on the left.
In actuality, the 'flashes' were subliminal images selected to elicit fear,
disgust or no emotion at all. The images flashed at varying speeds making it
impossible for the participants to be fully conscious of their presence. In
other words, the participants were unaware that they were viewing images of
growling dogs and dirty toilets or even neutral images, such as horses or
chairs.
The participants then underwent three tests to measure the effect of the images
on their cognition, feelings and behavior. For the cognitive measure, they
completed word fragments with a variety of words including those that expressed
disgust, fear, anger, generally negative, generally positive and neutral
feelings. Next, participants rated the overall positivity or negativity of their
mood and the extent to which they felt fearful, disgusted, satisfied, relieved,
proud, angry, shameful and joyful on 7-point scales.
During the behavioral measure, participants were asked to take part in either a
'strange food test' or a 'scary movie test,' assuming that, for example, those
who were exposed to the disgusting images would want to avoid the possibility of
eating something unpleasant. At the end of the study, the researchers asked
gradually more specific questions about the subliminal images to gauge the
participants' awareness of the study's purpose and intent.
The intriguing results, which appear in the April issue of Psychological
Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, strongly
support the psychologists' theory. Those participants who viewed only the
disgust-inducing subliminal images were more likely to use disgust words in the
word-completion task, to describe their feelings with the disgust words and to
choose to take the 'scary movie test.' The same held true for those who viewed
only the fear-inducing images - they also were more likely to use words related
to fear and to take the 'strange food test.'
The psychologists also found that after quick (120ms) speed exposures to
emotional stimuli, a general, negative mood developed accompanied by a specific
emotion, such as fear after seeing fearful pictures. After the super-quick
(40ms) speed exposure, only a general negative mood was induced without a
specific emotion involved. These empirical findings are the first to demonstrate
that specific emotions can be evoked without awareness of the cause and that a
person's global mood can develop into a specific emotion.
And while the study did not investigate how an individual eventually becomes
conscious of their emotions, the scientists did pose an additional hypothesis:
"When emotions are full-blown, people become aware of their emotions by
perceiving their own actions and bodily reactions; likewise, when emotions are
weak, people fail to notice their weakly-related actions and bodily
reactions."
Author Contact: Kirsten Ruys
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology
journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information.
Article "The Secret Life of Emotions"
Source: Katie Kline
Association
for Psychological Science
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