Michael
Dec 29th 2008, 10:27 AM
Research suggests that seeing the flag doesn't make Americans feel more patriotic. But it does make them feel more nationalistic and more superior to non-Americans.
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In Israel, cognitive scientist Ran Hassin studied the association that subliminal flashes of the Israeli flag had on discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and found that “subliminal presentation of a national flag can bring about significant changes not only in a citizen's expressed political opinions within an experimental setting but also in their ‘real-life’ overt political behavior.” In his experiments, participants — all Israelis — who saw the flag flashes answered questions with a more “mainstream Zionist” tilt than those who didn’t.
Source (http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/Does-Old-Glory-Have-a-Dark-Side)
The article references several different studies on the psychological effects of flags (Israel and US in particular examples).
The sight of the national flag tends to 'increase' nationalism, not patriotism. Go figure.
I wonder if other revered symbols have similar effects...
...
In Israel, cognitive scientist Ran Hassin studied the association that subliminal flashes of the Israeli flag had on discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and found that “subliminal presentation of a national flag can bring about significant changes not only in a citizen's expressed political opinions within an experimental setting but also in their ‘real-life’ overt political behavior.” In his experiments, participants — all Israelis — who saw the flag flashes answered questions with a more “mainstream Zionist” tilt than those who didn’t.
Source (http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/Does-Old-Glory-Have-a-Dark-Side)
The article references several different studies on the psychological effects of flags (Israel and US in particular examples).
The sight of the national flag tends to 'increase' nationalism, not patriotism. Go figure.
I wonder if other revered symbols have similar effects...