It is no good listening to a subliminal CD if you are not looking for change, or more specifically if your goals do not match the aims of the CD – a fact which is backed up by Dr Johan Karremans:
He suggests that subliminal messaging ONLY has an effect when the messages are goal relevant.
He conducte a piece of research to asses whether the subliminal priming of a branded drink would affect someones choice of beverage, and whether if the effect is caused by feelings of being thirsty. He wanted to find out if subliminally priming / preparing the participant with subliminal text or imagery without them being aware would make a person more familiar with the branded product.
Half of his participants were exposed to subliminal messages saying “Lipton Ice” repeatedly flashed on a computer screen for 24 milliseconds, while the control group half was primed with an unbranded message.
He found that subliminally planting the brand name of a drink (in this case Lipton Iced Tea ) made those who were thirsty want the Lipton Ice. People who were not already thirsty, however, were not influenced by the subliminals – as their goal was not to quench their thirst!
This research relates to our advice on subliminal messaging, that, just like hypnosis you have to want to change – if you buy a stop smoking subliminal CD for someone who doesn’t want to stop smoking then it will likely not have much effect on them. However if the CD is for yourself and your goal is to stop smoking then it will help you and increase your likelihood of quitting.
View Other Research
This article is just the tip of the iceberg, we have our master collection of subliminal research with all of the officially written, educational level research into subliminal messaging.