ABSTRACT
The United States was rocked by a scandalous revelation in the 1950s when it was reported that subliminal advertising—messages such as “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Eat popcorn” flashed for milliseconds on a movie screen—increased concession sales by influencing people to buy products without their knowledge (Crossen, 2007). Although this claim proved to be false, there is some truth behind the story that alarmed the nation. People are often unaware of the cognitions involved in their attitudes and behaviors (Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986; Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977), and such processes may be especially important in consumer domains (Hofmann, Gawronski, Gschwendner, Le, & Schmitt, 2005).
