Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior
Leonard Mlodinow
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 0307472256
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Winner of the 2013 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Over the past two decades of neurological research, it has become increasingly clear that the way we experience the world--our perception, behavior, memory, and social judgment--is largely driven by the mind's subliminal processes and not by the conscious ones, as we have long believed. As in the bestselling The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Leonard Mlodinow employs his signature concise, accessible explanations of the most obscure scientific subjects to unravel the complexities of the subliminal mind. In the process he shows the many ways it influences how we misperceive our relationships with family, friends, and business associates; how we misunderstand the reasons for our investment decisions; and how we misremember important events--along the way, changing our view of ourselves and the world around us.
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872; repr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 363–93. 23. Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen, “Constants Across Cultures in the Face and Emotion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 17, no. 2 (1971): 124–29. 24. Paul Ekman, “Facial Expressions of Emotion: An Old Controversy and New Findings,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 335 (1992): 63–69. See also Rachel E. Jack et al., “Cultural Confusions Show That
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demonstrated his theory with a flourish by playing the role of Hans and enlisting twenty-five experimental subjects to question him. None were aware of the precise purpose of the experiment, but all were aware they were being observed for clues that might give the answer away. Twenty-three of the twenty-five made such movements anyway, though all denied having done so. Von Osten, for the record, refused to accept Pfungst’s conclusions and continued to tour Germany with Hans, drawing large and
its breeding. Differences in handling, they were warned, could skew the results and, by implication, their grade. Despite these caveats, the researchers also found superior performance among the rats whose handlers expected it. The students attempted to act impartially, but they couldn’t. They unconsciously delivered cues, based on their expectations, and the rats responded. It’s easy to draw analogies with how unconsciously communicated expectations might also affect human performance, but are
surreptitiously observing him on the playground and perusing his school records. The subjects were all middle-class, Protestant, Caucasian, and of average intelligence. All were well-adjusted boys who had just completed the fifth grade. None knew any of the others. After targeting two hundred prospects, the researchers had approached their parents offering a good deal. They could enroll their son in a three-week summer camp for a nominal fee, provided they agreed to have no contact with their