Symbiotic Oneness and Defensive Autonomy: Yet Another Experiment Demystifying Silverman's Findings Using “Mommy and I Are One”

Sohlberg, Staffan; Birgegård, Andreas; Czartoryski, Wanda; Ovefelt, Karin; Strömbom, Ylva

doi:10.1006/jrpe.1999.2264

Cited by 10 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Bargh argued that unconsciously activated goals persist in the face of obstacles and that unfulfilled motivation can increase over time (Bargh, 1997;Bargh & Ferguson, 2000). Attachment security goals might be parts of relational schemas activated by MIDIS and MIO (Sohlberg et al, 2000;Sohlberg & Jansson, 2002). Mikulincer, Orbach, and Iavnieli (1998) showed that out-of-awareness changes in selfother similarity function to achieve such goals.…”

Section: Why Persistent Effects Of Subliminal Stimulation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistent complex subliminal activation effects: First experimental observations.

Sohlberg

Birgegård

2003

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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A strong recent focus on unconscious processes has increased interest in subliminal stimulation and other experimental activation technologies. Five experiments using male and female university students (N = 365) were carried out to compare 5-ms exposures of "mommy and I" stimuli with 5-ms control stimulation. Measures of self-mother similarity and other variables taken 7-14 days after exposure were more strongly correlated among experimental participants. Such complex, persistent effects may follow when powerfully activating stimuli administered under wholly unconscious conditions provokes schematic processing of social information and behavioral confirmation. These scientifically exciting and ethically problematic findings imply a need for further reduction of the role accorded to conscious volition and control in psychology.

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Section: Why Persistent Effects Of Subliminal Stimulation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistent complex subliminal activation effects: First experimental observations.

Sohlberg

Birgegård

2003

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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“…Simultaneously, the Sohlberg et al (2000) experiment illustrates the main way in which our studies provided data that did not support Silverman. In stark contrast to the hypothesis that MOMMY stimulation provides fulfillment of a universal wish for "symbiotic oneness" (albeit illusory and temporary), our studies consistently found individually different responses to the stimulation (see also Bruchhauser, 2001).…”

Section: People Vary In Their Response To "Mommy and I Are One"mentioning

confidence: 69%

“…We did not include a direct test of the variable that may mediate the relationship, that is, the activation of a self‐with‐mother unconscious associative network (Sohlberg et al , 2000). Nonetheless, we noted above that global mood effects cannot readily explain the moderating influence of complementarity, so it may be difficult to account for the data without assuming that MOMMY activated some kind of structured mental contents.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…“unity” vs. “tree”) were increased in the MOMMY group (Sohlberg et al , 1997). Sohlberg, Birgegard, Czartoryski, Ovefelt and Strömbom (2000) asked participants to select verbal descriptor items from a list designed to indicate the activation of unconscious “symbiotic oneness” and “defensive autonomy” associations (e.g. “trusting and caring” vs. “wishing to be left alone”).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The latter two studies helped pinpoint what mental contents are activated by MOMMY, contents we presently refer to as contained in unconscious associative networks (Sohlberg et al , 2000). An associative network is “any network of elements connected together that can influence one another's states” (Sutherland, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Memories of mother, complementarity and shame: Predicting response to subliminal stimulation with “Mommy and I are one”

Sohlberg

Claesson

Birgegård

2003

Scandinavian J Psychology

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A poorly understood finding with potentially wide-ranging implications is that subliminal stimulation with "Mommy and I are one" affects behavior. In this study (n= 62), "Mommy and I are one" lowered implicit mood (p= 0.0015) in comparison with a neutral stimulus ("People are walking"). The effect was most pronounced in shame-prone participants with less positive memories of their mother, and low self-mother complementarity (interaction p= 0.0044). Effects of a potentially shame-inducing stimulus ("I am completely isolated") were not significant (ps > 0.11). The results concerning less positive memories of mother replicate previous findings. We suggest that activation of unconscious associative networks explains the data. Though more research is needed, the cognitive content of these networks may involve representations of self-with-mother; for some, the affective content could involve shame.

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Unconscious responses to "mommy and I are one": Does gender matter?

Sohlberg¹,

Jansson²

The Psychodynamics of Gender and Gender Role.

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A are dissimilar before puberty, but not after" (p. 185). van Dam's assertion was meant to convey a joking protest against poor readiness among psychoanalytic theorists in accommodating developmental hypotheses to social and cultural change. The quote serves well also to introduce the puzzling "now-you-see-it, nowyou-don't'' quality of gender-related effects in our own experi-These studies were supported by the Magnus Bergvall Foundation and by Grant F24/95 from the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. We thank Per Tell for assistance with the genderrelated identification analyses; all experimenters who collected data; and Andreas Birgegard, Lars Backman, and Katja Claesson for valuable input in the planning of the attachment false memory study.

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Symbiotic Oneness and Defensive Autonomy: Yet Another Experiment Demystifying Silverman's Findings Using “Mommy and I Are One”

Cited by 10 publications

References 49 publications

Persistent complex subliminal activation effects: First experimental observations.

Persistent complex subliminal activation effects: First experimental observations.

Memories of mother, complementarity and shame: Predicting response to subliminal stimulation with “Mommy and I are one”

Unconscious responses to "mommy and I are one": Does gender matter?

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