Mere Exposure: A Gateway to the Subliminal

Preferences constitute one of the fundamental sources of social and individual stability and change. They give our lives direction and our actions meaning. They influence ideological values, political commitments, the marketplace, kinship structures, and cultural norms. They are sources of attachment and antagonism, of alliance and conflict. No species would evolve if it could not actively discriminate between objects, events, and circumstances that are beneficial and those that are harmful.