THE METHOD OF SUBLIMINAL PSYCHODYNAMIC ACTIVATION - DO INDIVIDUAL THRESHOLDS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

The present experiment investigated the effects of subliminal psychody namic stimuli on anxiety as measured by heart rate. Following an anxie ty-inducing task, male and female subjects were tachistoscopically sho wn, at their subjective thresholds, one of five subliminal stimuli, MO MMY AND I ARE ONE, DADDY AND I ARE ONE (symbiotic messages), MOMMY HAS LEFT ME (abandonment message), I AM HAPPY AND CALM (positively toned but nonsymbiotic phrase), or MYMMO NAD I REA ENO (control stimulus). I t was hypothesized that men would exhibit a greater decrease in heart rate after exposure to the MOMMY stimulus than the control message. No definitive predictions were made for women. The abandonment phrase wa s expected to increase heart rate. A positively toned message was incl uded to assess whether its effects would be comparable to those hypoth esized for the MOMMY message. The results yielded no significant effec ts for stimulus or gen der and so provided no support for the hypothes es.