ABSTRACT
The notion of unconscious mental processes has stirred up many feelings during the past century. The very mention, around the 1950s, of possible effects of subliminal stimulation was deemed outrageous, primarily because it seemed to actualize subversive psychoanalytic thinking, thus eroding the (shaky) scientific status of psychology (cf. Cramer, 1998). Although subliminal activity was eventually accepted as an empirical fact-special homage should be paid to Norman Dixon’s (1971, 1981) incisive reviews of the field and to such researchers as the Seattle group (e.g., Greenwald, 1992)—a fundamentalistic cognitivism surfaced again in the 1980s, relying heavily on a rationalistic approach to basic facets of human action. Emotions were either neglected or reduced to secondary side effects of no great importance.
