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Subliminal Messages for Increasing Self-Esteem: Placebo Effect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

Manuel Froufe  and
Cecilia Schwartz
Manuel Froufe*
Affiliation:
Autonomous Universityof Madrid
Cecilia Schwartz
Affiliation:
New Age Consulting, S.L.
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Manuel Froufe, Facultad de Psicología.Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Cantoblanco. 28049 Madrid (Spain). E-mail: manuel.froufe@uam.es
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Abstract

Although experimental research has confirmed the capacity of the human cognitive system to process information that does not reach consciousness (unconscious perception), empirical evidence of the incidence of subliminal verbal messages included on audiotapes claiming to improve human resources and correct some behavioral problems is meager and inconsistent. Our study assesses the influence of “subliminal tapes” designed to increase self-esteem. Participants were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions. One group listened to a tape of music with supra- and subliminal messages; another listened to a tape of music with only subliminal messages; the third group's tape had only music, although the participants believed that it also included subliminal messages; a fourth (“waiting”) group heard no tapes, but filled in the same self-esteem scales. Participants in the first three groups filled in the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965) before and after listening to the tape for several days. All groups showed a similar pretest-posttest improvement in self-esteem (p ≤ .003), except for the waiting group, which did not improve (p = .311). This implies that only a placebo effect took place. Our data are not in accordance with those obtained by other authors. We comment upon the possible reasons for these discrepancies.

Aunque la investigación experimental ha constatado la capacidad del sistema cognitivo humano para procesar información que no accede a la conciencia (percepción inconsciente), los datos empíricos sobre la incidencia de los mensajes verbales subliminales incluidos en cintas de audio, comercializadas para potenciar los recursos humanos y corregir algunos problemas conductuales, son muy escasos e inconsistentes. Nuestro estudio evalúa la influencia de “mensajes subliminales”, grabados en cinta, diseñados para mejorar la autoestima. Los sujetos fueron asignados aleatoriamente a cuatro condiciones experimentales. Un grupo escuchó una cinta con música y mensajes supra y subliminales; otro, una cinta con música y mensajes subliminales únicamente; en la tercera condición la cinta sólo contenía música, si bien los sujetos creían que también incluía mensajes subliminales; un cuarto grupo (“de espera”) fue sometido a las mismas mediciones de autoestima, pero no recibió la cinta. Los participantes de los tres primeros grupos completaron la Escala Tennessee de Autoconcepto (Fitts, 1965) antes y después de haber escuchado la cinta durante varios días. Todos los grupos mostraron una mejora similar entre el pretest y el postest de autoestima (p ≤ .003), salvo el de espera, que no mejoró (p = .311). Ello implica que únicamente tiene lugar efecto placebo. Nuestros datos contradicen los obtenidos por algunos otros autores. Se analizan las posibles razones de estas discrepancias.

Keywords

subliminal messagesunconscious perceptionincrease in self-esteemmensajes subliminalespercepción inconscientemejora de la autoestima
Type
Articles
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , May 2001 , pp. 19 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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