Welcome to the Social-Engineer Podcast: The Doctor Is In Series – where we will discuss understandings and developments in the field of psychology.  

This is Episode 177 and hosted by Chris Hadnagy, CEO of Social-Engineer LLC, and The Innocent Lives Foundation, as well as Social-Engineer.Org and The Institute for Social Engineering. 

Joining Chris is co-host Dr. Abbie Maroño. Abbie is Director of education at Social-Engineer, LLC, and a perception management coach. She has a PhD in Behaviour analysis and specializes in nonverbal communication, trust, and cooperation. 

Today’s conversation will be on the topic of Subliminal Persuasion. [Sep 05, 2022] 

00:00 – Intro 

00:27 – Dr. Abbie Maroño Intro 

01:07 – Intro Links 

• Social-Engineer.com
• Managed Voice Phishing
• Managed Email Phishing
• Adversarial Simulations 

• Social-Engineer channel on SLACK
• CLUTCH
• innocentlivesfoundation.org 

03:26 – Why this podcast? 

04:28 – The topic of the day: Subliminal Persuasion 

05:46 – What is Subliminal Persuasion? 

07:03 – The Coca-Cola & popcorn myth 

09:08 – Judas Priest Lawsuit 

10:32 – Sex on ice, does it work? 

15:00 – Getting warmer... 

16:08 – ...and colder 

18:49 – The importance of being attentive 

21:28 – Does it pass the smell test? 

22:59 – Can Prime lead to Persuasion? 

24:34 – The necessity of Motivation 

27:05 – Does Belief play a role? 

28:17 – The Smell of Fear 

32:52 – Applying the Subliminal 

38:58 – The limitations of application 

41:26 – Subtle Psychology 

44:33 – Book Recommendations 

• Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior – Leonard Mlodinow 

45:42 – Find Dr. Abbie Maroño on the web 

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/abbiejmarono 
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-abbie-maroño-phd-35ab2611a 

• Website: https://www.abbiemarono.com/ 

46:26 – Find Chris on the web 

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/humanhacker 
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/christopherhadnagy 

46:41 – Wrap Up  

47:59 – Outro 

• www.social-engineer.com 
• www.innocentlivesfoundation.org 

Select research: 

Chen, Z., Tan, Y., Zhang, Z., & Li, M. (2021). Research on subliminal visual messages based on EEG signal and convolutional neural network. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 336, p. 05014). EDP Sciences.   

Damaskinidis, G., & Kostopoulou, L. (2021). Intersemiotic Translation of Subliminal Messages in Brand Logos: A Qualitative Experimental Research. International Journal of Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric (IJSVR), 5(1), 1-14.   

Dijksterhuis, A., Aarts, H., & Smith, P. K. (2005). The power of the subliminal: On subliminal persuasion and other potential applications. The new unconscious, 1, 77-106.   

Epley, N., Savitsky, K., & Kachelski, R. A. (1999). What every skeptic should know about subliminal persuasion. Skeptical Inquirer, 23(5), 40-45. 

Hsu, L., & Chen, Y. J. (2020). Neuromarketing, subliminal advertising, and hotel selection: An EEG study. Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), 28(4), 200-208. 

Li, N., Juan, L., Xin, W., & Xiang-hong, S. (2011, March). Effect of sustained subliminal auditory stimulus on human emotion. In International Conference on Information Science and Technology (pp. 381-384). IEEE. 

Loersch, C., Durso, G. R., & Petty, R. E. (2013). Vicissitudes of desire: A matching mechanism for subliminal persuasion. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(5), 624-631. 

Riener, A. (2012). Subliminal persuasion and its potential for driver behavior adaptation. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 13(1), 71-80. 

Smarandescu, L., & Shimp, T. A. (2015). Drink coca-cola, eat popcorn, and choose powerade: testing the limits of subliminal persuasion. Marketing Letters, 26(4), 715-726. 

Strahan, E. J., Spencer, S. J., & Zanna, M. P. (2002). Subliminal priming and persuasion: Striking while the iron is hot. Journal of experimental social psychology, 38(6), 556-568. 

Zacharia, A. B., Hamelin, N., Harcar, T., & Rodgers, P. (2020). A Neuro Analysis of Static Subliminal Advertising in Packaging. EDITORIAL 77, 29, 81-104.