Can the Unconscious Mind be Persuaded? An Overview with Marketing Implications

Nittaya Wongtada
Additional contact information
Nittaya Wongtada: NIDA Business School, National Development Administration, 118 Seri Thai Road, Bangkapi, Bangkok 10240, Thailand.

International Review of Management and Marketing, 2018, vol. 8, issue 1, 36-44

Abstract: Communicating directly with consumer’s unconscious thought is believed to enhance the effectiveness of marketing strategy. The current application of neuroscience in social science studies including marketing reinvigorates the interest in this topic. Thus, this article serves as an overview of the development of knowledge of unconscious communication and persuasion. Although there are some evidences to support the ability to communicate directly with unconscious thoughts and possibility to manipulate the processing of information by the unconscious mind by using subliminal cues, the reliability and validity of these findings are questionable. Inherited weaknesses in neuroscience tools, inappropriate research methodology, and alternative explanations of causal relations are among some threats to the value of current findings. Implications for marketing managers and academic researchers in this uncertain situation are also provided.

Keywords: Unconscious Thought; Neuroscience; Marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D87 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econjournals.com/index.php/irmm/article/download/5782/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.econjournals.com/index.php/irmm/article/view/5782/pdf (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eco:journ3:2018-01-6

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Management and Marketing is currently edited by Ilhan Ozturk

More articles in International Review of Management and Marketing from Econjournals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ilhan Ozturk ().