can subliminal messages make physical changes

As a control, others were asked to complete neutral versions of the same activities, either writing a story on a topic unrelated to aging or watching a screen with flashes of nonsense strings of letters.

One group of participants was asked to write a story about “a senior citizen who is mentally and physically healthy,” while another group completed a subliminal-messaging computer task where positive aging-related words-“spry” or “wise,” for example-flashed across the screen too quickly for them to detect on a conscious level. In a study recently published in the journal Psychological Science, Levy and researchers from Yale and the University of California Berkeley set out to learn the answer by studying 100 volunteers between the ages of 61 and 99 (the average age was 81). Which raises another question: Can what they think be changed? Or, as The New York Times summed it up in a 2012 article on Levy’s work, “Old people become what they think.” 'People hold opposing stereotypes at the same time-for instance, old people are wise and old people are also senile.'Īcross the board, the studies pointed to the same conclusion: A person’s attitude towards old age affects how they fare once they reach it. Sure enough, those with more positive ideas of aging were more likely to make a full recovery. In another study, this one from 2012, a team of researchers followed 598 people over the age of 70 as they recovered from disabling injuries or illnesses. In one 2002 study, she and her colleagues analyzed data collected from 660 seniors over a quarter-century those with an optimistic view of old age lived an average of 7.5 years longer than those with a pessimistic view, even after controlling for factors like overall health, socioeconomic status, and loneliness. The answers to these hypothetical questions matter in very real ways.īecca Levy, the director of social and behavioral sciences at the Yale School of Public Health, has spent much of her career examining how cultural perceptions of aging affect the health of the elderly.

There’s no shortage of stereotypes to choose from: Are you in the prime of your life, the golden years, dispensing an endless stream of wisdom? Or are you cantankerous, forgetful, fearful of your own decline? In this imaginary scenario, are you spry or wizened? Are you beloved by your family, or are you their burden? Not just a more wrinkled version of your face or more gray in your hair, but the bigger stuff, too: What do you do? How do you feel? Take a moment and imagine yourself in old age.

Can subliminal messages make physical changes