Myth 5, 33 en 46 - Lilienfield et al. - BulletPoints

Myth #5: "Subliminal messages can persuade people to purchase products"

• Even though modern psychology acknowledges that much of our mental processing goes on in our subconscious, this does not mean that subliminal messages are seen as effective. Subliminal messages can be linked to Freud, whose ideas have been abandoned in modern psychology. 
• Vance Packard popularized the view of the unconscious and subliminal messaging. He accepted the story of the marketing consultant James Vicary, who 'successfully' demonstrated the effect of subliminal advertising. He claimed that with using subliminal messages during a movie, he was able to persuade cinema patrons to buy popcorn and Coca-Cola. He stated that the sales of popcorn and Coca-Cola skyrocketed, because of this experiment. His ideas achieved widespread popular acceptance, even though Vicary never submitted his ideas to a scientific journal. Also, nobody has ever been able to replicate his experiment. Later, in 1962, Vicary admitted that the had made up the whole experiment.
• So, to this day, there is no accurate evidence that subliminal messaging works or that it can affect consumers' behaviors.  Even though there is no scientific evidence for subliminal messaging, subliminal advertisements still pop up. For example, during the U.S. presidential election in 2000, there was a Republican TV attack which was aimed at Al Gore. For a very short time, the word "RATS" was shown on Al Gore's face. The creator of the ad claimed that this was purely accidental. However, according to advertising experts, this was probably intentional, because the advanced technology that they had used would not lead to such a mistake.

Myth #33: "Low Self-Esteem is a Major Cause of Psychological Problems"

• Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were two students of the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. On the morning of April 20, 1999 (Adolf Hitler's 110th birthday), they dressed in black trench coats and murdered twelve students and a teacher before killing themselves. When mental health experts and social commentators opinionated on their behaviour, most of them concluded that they did this because of low self-esteem. 
• The epidemic of school shootings in America has also been viewed as a consequence of declining self-esteem in children. Also, many popular psychologists have stated that low self-esteem leads to unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, violence, depression, anxiety and alcoholism. Because of this, books about how to increase self-esteem have become very popular. It also has an effect on public policy. For example, in 1986, California funded a project for examining the negative consequences of low self-esteem and to find ways to increase it for 245,000 per year. Many American school teachers also try to increase their students' self-esteem, for example by asking them to generate a list in which they need to state what they are proud of. Some athletic teams also reward trophies to all children, to avoid making losing individual feel bad. 
• Harris and Klebold were not low in self-esteem. In contrast, they seem to have had a very high self-esteem. Both were fascinated with Nazism and had fantasies about world domination. Also, when looking at Harris' diaries, it was found that he saw himself as morally superior to others and that he felt contempt for all of his peers. Harris and Klebold had been teased and bullied by their peers, which led most commentators to believe that they had low self-esteem. However, this is a case of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" reasoning. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning refers to "it happened after this, therefore it is because of this". However, it is not possible to state that because teasing preceded violence, it also caused the violence. Instead, Harris and Klebold's high self-esteem may have lead to that they viewed the teasing as a threat to their self-worth (a narcissistic injury). Therefore, they were motivated to seek revenge. 
• It can be concluded that bullies and aggressive children have overly positive perceptions of how others see them. In one experiment, aggressive and nonaggressive children were asked to report how popular they were. It was found that aggressive children had the tendency to overestimate their popularity. This was especially true for narcissistic children. Thus, the research described shows that high self-esteem can have negative consequences. This is an important implication, because of the high popularity of self-esteem programs.

Myth #46: "Virtually all people who confess to a crime are guilty of it"

• To get a suspect to confess, the police often uses a "good-cop, bad-cop" approach. This is a game that the police plays. The "good cop" offers the suspect sympathy and support and suggests possible reasons for the crime. He or she also emphasizes the benefits that the suspect could expect when he or she snitches on other criminals. The bad cop confronts the suspect with overwhelming evidence, questions his alibi and intimidates the suspect by saying that there is a long jail term if the suspect does not confess. This game often leads the suspect to confess and often this confession is seen as the real truth. For example, 77% of police investigators and Canadian customs officials believe that they are accurate at detecting whether a suspect is guilty. The news and entertainment media also assume that criminal confessions are accurate. 
• Saul Kassin and his colleagues categorized false confessions as either compliant or internalized. Compliant confessions refer to that people confess during interrogations to gain a promised or implied reward or to escape an unpleasant situation or to avoid a threat. Internalized confessions refer to that vulnerable people come to believe that they committed a crime, even though they did not.
• The media may be helpful in minimizing the risk of false confessions. For example, they could highlight cases in which innocent people are wrongly imprisoned. This may lead to changes in police interrogations. For example, interviews could be videotaped from start to finish, to evaluate the use and effects of coercive procedures. Many police departments are already videotaping their interrogations. This might be a good solution to lower the amount of false confessions!