Notice the last sentence in this excerpt. The commercial application of these studies is the primary focus of all anthropology. It looks like the negative has a much more powerful emotional kick than fluffy positive statements.
Let’s say you are talking self improvement, would “I am not, nor will I ever by a penniless idiot to lazy and stupid to feed himself. That’s why I work hard and succeed.” As opposed to, “I am successful and happy!!”
Behind the new study were experts at the University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom. Their efforts were financially supported by the Wellcome Trust. “There has been much speculation about whether people can process emotional information unconsciously, for example pictures, faces and words. We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words,” UCL Professor Nilli Lavie, the leader of the investigation group, explains.
“Clearly, there are evolutionary advantages to responding rapidly to emotional information. We can’t wait for our consciousness to kick in if we see someone running towards us with a knife or if we drive under rainy or foggy weather conditions and see a sign warning ‘danger.’ Negative words may have more of a rapid impact. ‘Kill your speed’ should be more noticeable than ‘Slow down.’ More controversially, highlighting a competitor’s negative qualities may work on a subliminal level much more effectively than shouting about your own selling points,” the expert concludes.
via Negative, Subliminal Messages Are Picked Up Best – Positive ones not that much so – Softpedia.
