A leading American science writer, Leonard Mlodiow claims, in his book
Subliminal: how your unconscious mind rules your behaviour
(New York: Random House, 2012), that
our preferences and choices are shaped by our context and life experience, although
we experience our behaviour as conscious and deliberate. For example, women are
much more likely to give personal contact information to strange men if the men
lightly touch the woman’s hand or wrist when asking for their telephone number or
email address. Or to take another example, studies repeatedly show people prefer
the taste of Pepsi over Coke (in blind tasting tests) but more often choose Coke
when shopping because they believe Coke tastes better. In yet another example,
Mlodiow reports shoppers buy Italian wine when a wine shop plays Italian music
and French wine with a wine shop plays French music, yet the customers—when
asked about their choices—report being unaware of the music and produce reasons
(which they genuinely believe) for the choices they made. How should these and
related discoveries be incorporated into the design of public health interventions?