Subliminal exposure to national flags affects political thought and behavior

Abstract

Political thought and behavior play an important role in our lives, from ethnic tensions in Europe, to the war in Iraq and the Middle Eastern conflict, to parliamentary and presidential elections. However, little is known about how the individual's political attitudes and decisions are shaped by subtle national cues that are so prevalent in our environment. We report a series of experiments that show that subliminal exposure to one's national flag influences political attitudes, intentions, and decisions, both in laboratory settings and in ''real-life'' behavior. Furthermore, this manipulation consistently narrowed the gap between those who score high vs. low on a scale of identification with Israeli nationalism. These are among the most crucial topics in today's international politics, with ramifications stretching from the Middle East, to the more global ''war on terror,'' to many aspects of our daily lives. In this article, we show that the subliminal presentation of national symbols can significantly influence people's stance on issues of this type, as well as how they intend to vote, and how they actually do vote, in general elections. More specifically, in all of the experiments described below, the brief presentation of a national symbol pulled people toward the political center.There are many reasons why nonconscious exposure to national symbols should not play a significant causal role in political thought and behavior. Chief among them is the normative perspective, which suggests that one's political agenda should be driven by two factors: one's ideology and the facts of the matter. These should form the input for an intentional reasoning process, wherein the goal is carefully thought-through political activity. Indeed, research in experimental psychology and related fields has repeatedly shown that political behavior and thought are influenced by one's ideology (as manifested, for example, in one's values and party affiliation) and by current events (1-3).However, research in the cognitive sciences over the last three decades has repeatedly demonstrated that conscious awareness is very limited in its processing resources (4-7). This is why simple thought and routine actions are determined not solely by conscious deliberation and reasoning but also by complex cognitive and motivational processes that occur outside of conscious awareness (8-15). These findings raise the possibility that even political thought and overt political behavior may be affected by nonconscious processes (16).The experiments in this article examine the effects of national symbols, in this case one's national flag, on various political issues of the type presented above and on significant ''real-life'' political behavior. The national flag of any country is one of the most pervasive cultural and ideological images, and as such it has the potential of exerting significant influence over our behavior. Symbols of this sort are known to have two functions. First, they communicate certain ideas, beliefs, and goals. Second, they bring ...

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“…Research has begun to investigate neural activation that underlies the processing of political attitudes and preferences (Amodio et al, 2007;Zamboni et al, 2009), including studies on deliberative processing of political statements and simulated voting for political candidates (Westen et al, 2006;Spezio et al, 2008;Gozzi et al, 2010;Bruneau and Saxe, 2010;Rule et al, 2010).Yet the neural substrate underlying automatic processing of political preferences (Todorov et al, 2005;Ballew and Todorov, 2007;Berger et al, 2008;Galdi et al, 2008;Hassin et al, 2007;Carter et al, 2011;Healy et al, 2010) remains largely unstudied. Extending earlier fMRI studies, the present studyshowed that brain responses can reflect individual political preferences -for politicians and associated parties -in the absence of conscious deliberation and attention.…”

“…Furthermore, incidental exposure to environmental cues and irrelevant events has been suggested to shape political choices without participants' awareness (Bergeret al, 2007;Carteret al, 2011;Hassin et al, 2007;Healy et al, 2010).…”

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“…Important studies about flag influence on attitudes and political behavior come from Israel, a country where exhibition of national emblems is overwhelming. In a series of experiments Ran Hassin demonstrated that flags waving in the environment had appreciable effects although contact with them was ultra-short or unnoticed (Hassin et al, 2007(Hassin et al, , 2009). The first one was carried out with Israelis who, while taking a verbal task on a computer screen received flashes with pictures of the national flag with a duration so short (16 milliseconds), that they could not detect them.…”