Psychologists have a word for it: “reactance.” It could even be unconscious.
In LiveScience.com, Robert Roy Britt reports on a new study, in which participants were asked to name a significant person in their lives whom they perceived as controlling, and another who just wanted them to enjoy themselves. After that, they were asked to decipher jumbled words on a computer, while the names of the two people they had mentioned were flashed at them so quickly that they only registered on a subliminal level. People performed better when the name of the person who wanted them to have fun was flashed at them.
Britt quotes psychologist Gavan Fitzsimons as saying, “Our participants were not even aware that they had been exposed to someone else’s name, yet that nonconscious exposure was enough to cause them to act in defiance of what their significant other would want them to do.”
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
When people read our daily news of the edge and listen to our radio shows?but don’t support us?do they unconsciously want us to go away? (because that’s what will happen if you don’t subscribe today!)
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