A Study Exploring the Effect of Subliminally Priming Known Human Faces vs. Unknown Human Faces on Product Selections by Consumers

Abstract

Unconscious thoughts more than often are seen to precede conscious contemplations of the surroundings. The Present chapter attempts to explore how subliminal priming of known and unknown human faces could impact product selection and decision-making time of consumers. 2 (Known face X Unknown face) X 2 (Product selection X Decision-making time) within-subject design was used for the study. A stimulus-priming experiment designed in E-prime software was used to subliminally expose the participants to both known and unknown human faces They were then asked to select a product that they were willing to buy from an option of four products, of which one of the products was primed along with Human face (Known Vs Unknown). The product selection rates as well as the time taken to select the product were recorded. A total of 100 Participants falling in the age category of young adults (18-39) took part in the study. The chapter discusses the results and dives deeper into the implications that they hold in the world of marketing.