ashley flowers psychology lab report 2-2

Running Head: SUBLIMINAL EFFECTS ON PATRIOTISM 1

The Effects of Subliminal Messages and Patriotism

Ashley Flowers

CUNY Hunter College

SUBLIMINAL EFFECTS ON PATRIOTISM 2

Abstract

The aim of our study is to examine how music affects patriotism. We hypothesize that partici-

pants will report higher levels of patriotism when listening to patriotic music than when listening

to a control song. For participants we used twenty random CUNY Hunter College students rang-

ing from ages 17-33 in a between groups design. For our materials we used a psychology lab cu-

bicles in which a participant would complete a numeric scale rating survey that was then used as

data in our experiment. In another cubicle a member of the 250 experimental psychology course

would play a experimental patriotic or a control song. To compare the experimental and the con-

trol groups we used an independent samples test and found that there was no significant differ-

ence between the control and the experimental groups with a t(18) = .000, p <.05 (or p = 1). Even

though the mean for both groups were 19.3, the control group had a higher SEM than the experi-

mental group which shows that the control condition has a higher variability. Therefore, whether

the participants were listening to a “patriotic” song or a control song, patriotism was not affected.

The Effects of Subliminal Messages on Patriotism


Subliminal messages affects how a mind works by affecting our subconscious mind. Pic-

tures can affect our mind fully and most advertisements made are designed in picture form be-

cause the people are aware on the effects it could play in your mind. They can affect the way a

subliminal mind works and also contributes to how our subconscious mind runs. Subliminal mes-

sages are mostly used in advertisements where advertisers incorporates the subliminal messages

which is then passed on to the viewer. The subliminal messages can either be helpful or harmful

depending on what person is seeing or hearing. In this way a persons level of patriotism can be

affect by subliminally effecting an subconscious mind. Researchers have conducted studies to

determine whether exposure to patriotic symbols influences a persons behavior. Past research has

shown that exposure to national images elicits a specific behavior.

A study called “A Single Exposure to the American Flag Shifts Support Toward Republi-

canism up to 8 Months Later,” conducted by Travis J. Carter, Melissa J. Ferguson, and Ran R.

Hassin at the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago’s Booth School discov-

ered that people who are briefly exposed to the American flag tend to shift toward Republic be-

liefs. Scientists have speculated over whether national flags exert an unnoticeable influence on

political behavior. The speculation came to an end, when in 2007, Israeli researchers found em-

pirical data to prove that subliminal exposure to a national flag leads voters to support politically

moderate views. In the study it is believed that in countries dominated by a two party system, the

national flag moves people toward one end of the spectrum rather than to the middle. Results of

both experiments found that a single exposure to a small American flag during deliberation about

voting intentions led to “significant and robust changes in participants’ voting intentions, voting

behavior, and political attitudes, all in the politically conservative direction” (Carter, 2007).


To tests whether the flag priming was truly subliminal, participants were told that the

mask would be preceded by either a flag which would be the experimental group or a scrambled

version of a flag , the control group, and that to indicate which they saw. Participants were not

able to confidently identify the stimulus. This resulted in having the participants complete two

experiments. In the first experiment participants were presented for 16 m/sec and immediately

masked; after they were ask whether the first stimulus were a flag or a mask.

This experiment did not result in a significant change concluding that the priming was in-

deed subliminal. Based on the answers given they were divided into two sections: a high IWIN

and low IWIN. IWIN stands for “Identification with Israeli Nationalism.” Participants who an-

swered with a more nationalistic answer correlated more with the high IWIN rather than low

IWIN. This examines how subliminal flag priming and IWIN affect political opinions. This ex-

periment demonstrates the difference between a group in the control condition and a group in the

experimental group and how a prime can influence political opinions.

Other studies report that nationalistic images affect a person’s political attitudes. Hassin

R.R, Ferguson, and Gross conducted a study which they named, “ Subliminal Exposure to Na-

tional Flags Affects Political Thought and Behavior,” this research was to determine whether flag

priming influences participants who would be more likely to support Republicans. They believe

this to be true because a pilot study mentioned earlier by Travis J. Carter, Melissa J. Ferguson,

and Ran R. Hassin ,suggests that participants associated with the American flag and with the Re-

publican party. To test this hypothesis they divided the study in two experiments.

In experiment one participants were acquired through advertising in online survey were

randomly assigned to either the flag-prime or the control group. The Democratic or Republican

participant were asked to completed questionnaires through various sessions. Session two in-


cluded a scale for voting intentions, half with the flag and half without. Session three were the

voting results. Session four, which was conducted eight months later, asked the participants

questions about politics. There was a difference between sessions, in Session two, the flag prim-

ing group reported stronger intentions to vote for Republicans, stronger then that of the control

group. Flag priming group had more warmth toward the Republican party, and more conserva-

tive beliefs than the control group. Session three included participants in the flag prime group

were more likely to have voted for a Republican than were participants in the control group. Ses-

sion four included participants in the flag prime group were not supporters of Barack Obama.

This experiment resulted in no significant difference between the participants who completed the

experiment.

In experiment two they tested whether the flag creates a shift specifically toward Republican-

ism rather or to any other party in the government. There were seventeen participants, where four

participants were eliminated from the study: one who previously took part in similar experiment,

one who did not complete the section of the experiment that involved having the priming, and

two who guessed the hypothesis of the experiment. The remaining thirteen participants were

shown four photos of buildings and asked whether or not they thought each photo had been taken

during the morning, afternoon, or evening. The result were that the American flag induced a shift

toward Republicanism even during a Democratic administration. This experiment is a reminder

that of one’s nationality can influence political decisions.

In our experiment we decided to utilize music as a prime rather than nationalistic images..

Instead of viewing the flags, we altered our experiment so that our participants subliminally lis-

tened to music while completing a survey. The aim of our study is to examine if participants

would report higher levels of patriotism when listening to patriotic music than when listening to


a control song. We hypothesize that participants will report higher levels of patriotism when lis-

tening to patriotic music than when listening to a control song because when lyrics containing a

national identity is subliminally heard manifestations of national identification is depicted.

Method

Participants

There were twenty participants ( 8 males and 12 females ) with an age range of 17 to 33

years ( M age = 21.60, SD = 3.77 years ). Each participant was a randomly chosen student in

CUNY Hunter College an included: 2 Freshmen, 2 Sophomores, 4 Juniors, 10 Seniors, 2 Gradu-

ate Students. Participants included 20 US residents, 16 US born and 4 non US born. All partici-

pants had an understanding that they were participating in an experiment for a Psychology 250

course.

Materials

For our materials we used a numeric Likert rating scale survey. The rating scale ranged

from 1 ( strongly disagree) to 7 ( strongly agree ). The survey included filler questions such as

personality questions that were included to counter balance the patriotism in some of the ques-

tions. In our survey we used the National Attachment Measurement Patriotism scale, this portion

of the survey included 5 questions which included: " I am proud to be an American," " I find the

sight of the American flag very moving," "Every time I hear the national anthem, I feel strongly

moved,"The symbols of the United States (e.g., the flag, Washington monument) do not move

me one way or the other," "I have great love for my country." These questions were hidden be-


tween filler questions from Rosenberg Self Esteem scale which determines societal and adoles-

cent self image, and the General Internet Usage scale.

While each participant was taking the survey in a cubicle music was being played. There

were two songs that were being played one of them being a "patriotic" country song by Billy Ray

Cyrus called "We the People" which represented the experimental and "Prayer in C" by Lily

Wood and the Prick which represented the control.

Procedures

Students from the Psychology 250 class invited random students found in Hunter College

to participate in the experiment. When and if the participant agreed to be in the experiment we

would then return to the class room. Each participant was placed in a randomly assigned group:

experimental or control. Each participant was walked into a cubicle where a survey was waiting,

as they completed the survey music would begin to play. In an adjacent cubicle a student of the

250 class was waiting with the music selections, he would either play the country experimental

song or the control song. After about 3 minutes or when the participant was finished with the sur-

vey they would the be directed into another cubicle where they would be debriefed. The debrief-

ing session included asking them questions such as, “Did you know what the survey was about?”

or “Did you hear the music playing?”

Results

For our research experiment we conducted an Independent Samples Test was conducted

to compare how our control group and experimental differed on demographics. The two groups

experimental and control groups randomly assigned each group having a value of 10 for a total

20 participants. A Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances was conducted and produced a Sig,


column of 0.253 which is greater than .05 which means that the variability in the two conditions

is about the same and they do not vary much. There was no significant difference in the scores

for Control (M = 19.3, SD = 7.13) and Experimental ( M = 19.3, SD = 5.03) conditions; t(18)

= .000, p <.05 (or p = 1). These results suggest that higher levels of patriotism did not occur

when listening to “patriotic” music.

Discussion

We hypothesized that participants will report higher levels of patriotism when listening to

patriotic music than when listening to a control song. Based on our experiment our results was

not supported by our hypothesis. This could be due to the fact that although country music is as-

sumed to represent a increased support for the beliefs in a particular political party it did not af-

fect those who live on the east coast such as the students in CUNY Hunter College. Overall, the

results of this study did not support the hypothesis that patriotic music raises higher levels of pa-

triotism.

Limitations:


The experiment had several limitations. This study was limited by its small sample size.

The sample size could have been expanded by including more students. The majority, 10 out of

20 participants in the experiment were seniors, this could be because most seniors tend to work

during the day and take night courses. This could be mended by doing the experiment during the

day to get a more variety. During the debriefing part of the experiment, the participants reported

that they did not hear the music when they were taking the survey in the cubicles. Another possi-

ble limitation is that the participants were only in the cubicle for 3 or so minutes. Much of the

data was self-reported, people are not always truthful especially when it comes to questions

about themselves.

Future Research:

In future experiments a possible improvement to the study could be to have better music

choices for the participants to listen to while filling the survey. Music that will better illicit na-

tionalism. Sixteen out of twenty participants were born in the United States, which could influ-

ence the validity of the experiment. For future research having a more balanced participants. An-

other possible improvement to the study could have been interviewing the participants. Personal

interviews could elicit greater information regarding participants knowledge and attitudes. This

method can add greater insight into the participants opinions.


References

Carter, T., Ferguson, M., & Hassin, R. (n.d.). A Single Exposure To The American Flag

Shifts Support Toward Republicanism Up To 8 Months Later. Psychological

Science, 1011-1018.

Chen, L. Y., Hsiao, B., Chern, C-C., & Chen, H. –G. (2014). General Internet Usage Scale

[Database record] Retrieved from PsychTESTS

Cyrus Billy. “We the people”

Federico, C. M., Golec, A., & Dial, J. L. (2005). National Attachment Measure [Database record] Retrieved from PsychTESTS

Hassin, R., Ferguson, M., Shidlovski, D., & Gross, T. (2007). Subliminal exposure to

national flags affects political thought and behavior. Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences, 19757-19761.


Lily Wood and The Prick. “Prayer in C”

Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for Equality of

Variances

t-test for Equality of Means

F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed)

Pat_To-

tal

Equal variances assumed 1.394 .253 .000 18 1.000

Equal variances not assumed .000 16.182 1.000

Section I

1. I use the Internet to read my email.

12345 Never Sometimes Every Day

2. I participate in chat rooms on the Internet. 12345

Never Sometimes

3. I shop online. 12345

Never Sometimes


4. I download music from the Internet. 12345

Never Sometimes

5. I browse Facebook or play the games on Facebook. 12345

Never Sometimes

Every Day

Every Day

Every Day

Every Day

6. I watch YouTube videos. 12345

Never Sometimes Every Day Section II

1. I am proud to be an American.

1234567

Strongly Disagree

2.

Strongly Agree

I find the sight of the American flag very moving.

1234567 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree

3. Every time I hear the national anthem, I feel strongly moved.

1234567

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Agree

4.

The symbols of the United States (e.g., the flag, Washington monument) do not move me one

way or the other.

ashley flowers psychology lab report 2-2

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