childhood experience. Often the skill of a trained psychoanalyst is needed to bring forth into consciousness an individual’s early childhood experiences that lie hidden deep in the unconscious. But people normally recall recent experiences that have meaning to them.
When a person is asked to recall an ad he is asked to be conscious of it. But because he is not conscious of it does not mean that the ad did not have its effect on him. He may have been strongly and powerfully affected by the ad, yet completely unaware of it.
Also, a person may not see any reason, or he may have no incentive for making a special effort to answer the question factually. An individual may want to be polite to the extent of saying yes or no, but he may not have the necessary incentive to call forth conscious images through a process of association.
We need no research in order to learn that the average housewife does not go to the store to buy package designs. Consciously she buys meat, cheese, fish or fruit; only unconsciously does she buy the container. The average housewife will not agree with you if you tell her that she bought a product because of the colors on the package.
However, when the same bar of soap was placed in a store on the same shelf but in two different wrappers, one wrapper outsold the other by 160 per cent. I told thirty-two women that they bought the soap because of the wrapper. Some of them responded with unfriendly looks and others denied it. Some even disdained to answer the accusation.
When two hundred and ten persons were asked whether they bought magazines for the articles, the fiction or the ads, one hundred and twelve said articles; ninety-four said fiction; and four said ads. However, in spite of the common opinion that people are not interested in ads*, facts proved otherwise. During the war a magazine was offered a group of soldiers in two types of editions, the regular issue and a special overseas edition from which the ads were eliminated. Out of three hundred men only two wanted the overseas edition without the ads.
In other words, people are not aware that ads have much psychological and social significance to them. Consciously many people buy magazines for the fiction and nonfiction, unconsciously they buy certain magazines because of the ads. It is evident that to ask people whether they value the ads is meaningless and wasteful effort.
Another study showed that individuals who claimed that they were not influenced by advertising, unconsciously bought only widely advertised products. Their conscious minds rejected advertising but their unconscious behavior was influenced by it.
A number of experiments demonstrated how images emerged from the unconscious through an associative process, but that a mere question did not provide the appropriate association factor or incentive.
The following is one such experiment that was made with forty club women of a middle class economic group. They were asked to walk through a room and then to write down what they had seen. After they had done so they were conducted back to the room where everything remained exactly as before except that a pair of scissors had been removed from the table.
They were asked to cut out images from colored sheets of paper. Scissors were needed to do the job. Twenty-four of them now said that they were sure they had seen scissors the first time they were in the room. Yet only three originally listed scissors as one of the items they had seen.
This meant that twenty-one out of twenty-four persons could bring forth the image of scissors when they actually needed the scissors for performing a task, whereas, in reply to the question, “What did you see in the room?” they did not list the scissors.
Normal and Abnormal Color Reactions
Colors have deep symbolic meanings. For example, we associate red with festivity, blue with distinction, purple with dignity, green with nature, yellow with sunshine. Pink is generally associated with health. People often say, “He is in the pink,” meaning that he is in very good health. White is a symbol of purity. Black expresses evil.
Colors are used as designations of special merit in awarding honors and prizes. Flags are the symbols of countries. We all know what red, white and blue mean to us. These and many other color associations are normal, traditional and social.
Normally, people speak of gay colors and somber colors, of colors that give pleasure and colors that depress. However, there are individuals whose reactions to colors are neither normal, nor traditional, nor social.
Tests on an unconscious level have shown that a specific magenta red has a preference rating of 94. This means that while 94 out of a hundred persons react to the color in a normal pleasurable way, six react unfavorably to this color. The reasons for the six individuals reacting negatively to an inherently beautiful color go back to an early childhood traumatic experience associated with the color.
A young Army officer and his wife and child lived in a one room apartment with camp-made furniture. One day when the baby was put into the high chair, she began to scream loudly.
When the chair was examined it was found that a nail had become exposed and had pricked the baby deeply into the flesh. The nail was immediately removed but the child refused to sit in the high chair even weeks after this experience. The parents were frantic but did not know what to do.
When this was explained to a friend who was a color specialist, he suggested that they paint the red high chair green. After this was done, the baby was perfectly content to sit in it. It is highly probable that this baby girl will grow up with a strong dislike for red.
A mother foolishly pointed out a policeman to her boy, telling him that if he did not behave this man would take him away and lock him up in a jail all by himself.
One day the boy’s father bought a new blue worsted suit for himself of which he was very proud. When he entered the room in his new suit the little boy became hysterical.
However, the relationship between the father’s blue suit and the child’s abnormal behavior was not discovered by the parents. Only much professional psychoanalytical probing revealed that the little boy associated the blue suit with the man who was going to take him to jail. The color, in this case, was a stronger emotional factor than the father-son relationship. (It is, of course, evident here that the father-son relationship was not very close.) The impression from such an experience, if it is not detected and corrected, can result in a lifelong, strong dislike for blue.
Jerry was six years old when his mother brought him to a children’s psychiatric clinic. The mother reported that Jerry not only refused to go to school but would get sudden fits whenever school was mentioned and that even on some occasions when the subject was not mentioned he became hysterical.
The mother was advised by the interviewer to matriculate the boy in the special classes for problem children conducted by the clinic. In these classes the children are observed by trained psychiatric social workers and a daily record is kept of each child’s behavior.
For the first two days Jerry was inhibited, fearful, unexpressive but otherwise normal. On the third day he became hysterical and again on the fourth day.
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