Caveat medicus--let the subliminal healer beware: Two experiments suggesting conditions when the effects of Silverman's Mommy and I Are One phrase are negative.

Abstract

According to L. H. Silverman (1985), subliminal activation experiments document a universal wish for symbioticlike merger. A recent meta-analysis (R. A. Hardaway, 1990) was consistent with this proposition in revealing more adaptive behavior (Cohen's d = .41) after stimulation with Mommy and I Are One (MIO; L. H. Silverman, F. M. Lachman, & R. H. Milich, 1982) than after neutral control phrases. However, indications are that positive effects are not universal. On the basis of mood being a possible mediator of MIO effects, the authors conducted an experiment in which 10 women given a high "dose" of MIO were compared with 10 others given a neutral control stimulus. Effects on mood were gauged with a word selection task. In a second experiment with new participants, mood was assessed by means of early childhood memories. These experiments produced negative effects (Cohen's ds = -.40 and -.48) that were significantly different from the previous positive estimate (.41). Defense activity may explain why negative outcomes are not identified when crude or delayed outcome measures are used.

Memories of mother, complementarity and shame: Predicting response to subliminal stimulation with “Mommy and I are one”

“…Comparing results with our previous SASB‐based experiment (Sohlberg et al , 1998, Experiment 3), an independent and negative main effect of the MOMMY stimulus, not seen in the previous experiment, occurred here. It prevented even those at the highest levels of self–mother relationship from obtaining mood scores that were positive relative to those obtained from their peers in the PEOPLE control condition.…”

“…Following the lead of Weinberger (1992; Weinberger, Kelner & McClelland, 1997), we found support for the hypothesis that MOMMY stimulation affects implicit mood (Sohlberg, Arvidsson & Birgegard, 1997; Sohlberg, Billinghurst & Nylén, 1998; Sohlberg, Samuelberg, Sidén & Thörn, 1998). Because mood in turn affects numerous aspects of cognition and behavior (Siegel & Weinberger, 1998), this finding helps explain the wide range of MOMMY effects reported in the literature (e.g.…”

Critique of Sohlberg and Birgegard's (2003) Report of Persistent Complex Effects of Subliminal Psychodynamic Activation Messages

“…The implications of this fact are discussed below. Sohlberg and colleagues predicted mood level and, consequently, the quality of poststimulation behavior following M I 0 (e.g., Sohlberg, Samuelberg, Siden, & Thorn, 1998). Scores on a measure devised by Sohlberg and Jansson, similar to Silverman's differentiation-from-mother scale, were used to predict mood level (Sohlberg & Jansson, 2002).…”

“…Participants rated themselves, then their mothers, on an adjective checklist. Extent of self-mother similarity was expressed as a Pearson correlation coefficient (Sohlberg, Samuelberg, Siden, & Thorn, 1998)) a strategy important to the critique of Sohlberg and Birgegard's findings, discussed below.…”

“…Sohlberg, Samuelberg, Siden, and Thorn (1998) defined effect size as follows: "When the null hypothesis is false, it is false to some specific non-zero degree, i.e., the effect size . .…”