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Subliminal Self‐Help Tapes and Academic Achievement: An Evaluation
Author(s) -
RUSSELL TANYA G.,
ROWE WAYNE,
SMOUSE ALBERT D.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of counseling and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.805
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1556-6676
pISSN - 0748-9633
DOI - 10.1002/j.1556-6676.1991.tb01522.x
Subject(s) - subliminal stimuli , psychology , treatment and control groups , class (philosophy) , placebo group , placebo , mathematics education , social psychology , medicine , alternative medicine , computer science , pathology , artificial intelligence
Marketing claims of effectiveness in improving academic achievement through the use of commercially prepared subliminal audiotapes were investigated. Students enrolled in a career development class were randomly assigned to an active treatment group (n=25), an inactive treatment group (n=26), or a control group (n=22). Participants in the treatment group listened to tapes with subliminal affirmations masked by ocean waves. The inactive treatment group listened to placebo tapes with ocean waves but no subliminal messages. Dependent variables used were final examination scores from the class and current semester grade point average. No treatment differences on either dependent measure were found. The implications of these findings are discussed.