The Effects of Subliminal Cues on Information Seeking and Evaluation of Google Search Results

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Psychology - Cognition, grade: 1.0, University of Cologne (DP Psychologie), language: English, abstract: In this bachelor thesis, based on the findings by Karremans, Stroebe, and Claus (2006), the effectiveness of subliminal cues on choice behavior was transposed to the online search environment. To give a clear answer for this matter, possibilities but also dangers of online information seeking and subliminal perception have been investigated. Subliminal stimuli seem to have great potential for this matter since there is much similarity (Strahan, Spencer, and Zanna, 2002) between the factors that make subliminal stimuli effective and the online search environment (i.e. need for information and goal relevance). An online survey was conducted trying to investigate that goal priming effects subsequent evaluation, but only when certain conditions interact with persons’ attitudes. Half of 98 participants were subliminally primed with the Google ad-icon Anzeige and subsequently evaluate on online advertisement and search engines. The results indicated that priming positively influences the evaluation on online advertisement and search engines, regardless of participants’ attitudes towards online search.