new

The Power of Suggestion: What We Expect Influences Our Behavior, for Better or Worse

Research Study by Maryanne Garry
June 6, 2012

...In a new article, psychological scientists Maryanne Garry and Robert Michael of Victoria University of Wellington, along with Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School and Plymouth University, delve into the phenomenon of suggestion, exploring the intriguing relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior. The article is published in the June issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Over their research careers, Garry and Kirsch have both studied the effects of suggestion on cognition and behavior. Kirsch focused mostly on suggestion in clinical psychology, while Garry, whose work is supported by the Marsden Fund of New Zealand, was interested in the effects of suggestion on human memory. When the two got to talking, “we realized that the effects of suggestion are wider and often more surprising than many people might otherwise think,” says Garry.

Across many studies, research has shown that deliberate suggestion can influence how people perform on learning and memory tasks, which products they prefer, and how they respond to supplements and medicines, which accounts for the well-known placebo effect.

But what can explain the powerful and pervasive effect that suggestion has in our lives? The answer lies in our ‘response expectancies,’ or the ways in which we anticipate our responses in various situations. These expectancies set us up for automatic responses that actively influence how we get to the outcome we expect. Once we anticipate a specific outcome will occur, our subsequent thoughts and behaviors will actually help to bring that outcome to fruition.

So, if a normally shy person expects that a glass of wine or two will help him loosen up at a cocktail party, he will probably feel less inhibited, approach more people, and get involved in more conversations over the course of the party. Even though he may give credit to the wine, it is clear that his expectations of how the wine would make him feel played a major role.

But it’s not just deliberate suggestion that influences our thoughts and behaviors – suggestions that are not deliberate can have the very same effects.

SOURCE: The Power of Suggestion: What We Expect Influences Our Behavior, for Better or Worse - Association for Psychological Science

This information was not obtained from an obscure blog in cyberspace, but from a highly credibly scientific research institution. There are hundreds of legitimate institutions and psychology websites which will support this research concerning the incredible power of suggestion on the human mind. Our youth are under satanic attack! ...

•They Still Hate Jesus (by Pastor Danny Castle; exposing Hollywood's satanic hatred for Jesus!).
•Hollywood's Satanic Agenda (1:28 hour documentary exposing the occult roots of Hollywood).
•Danny Castle—Exposing Lil Wayne, Kanye West, SpongeBob TV, Katy Perry And Hollywood.
•THE SATANIC MUSIC INDUSTRY | PART TWO (we are living in the last days; by Pastor Danny Castle)

According to the truthful research you've just read, if our youth expect to be encouraged by a song to drink alcoholic beverages and abuse it by binge drinking and getting drunk, then they are FAR MORE LIKELY TO DO IT!!! If young girls are encouraged to dress seductively and behave like prostitutes, then they are FAR MORE LIKELY TO DO SO!!! Young men these days have lost respect for females, viewing them as a commodity to use at leisure. What has caused this deterioration in American society? Look no further than the dirty Playboy philosophy, the $29,000,000,000 ($500 x 58,000,000) abortion industry, the insane man-hating feminist movement, immoral Hollywood, lewd Walt Disney, et cetera.

Disney encourages youth to indulge in premarital sex and “score” as a form of sport. Literally, young women have been cheapened to the level of being heifers (female cows) waiting to be mated with by a stud bull. Forget courtship. Forget a marriage commit. Just fornicate, get pregnant and then have an abortion. Then do it again and again. Young women are so entranced by the Godless music industry that one pimp can easily be a father to dozens of children via 4 or 5 women (and it gets much worse). In an episode of The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, Zack dresses up as a girl, promoting crossdressing. In the same episode, a young boy tells a girl to take her dress off. This is the sick twisted minds at work in Walt Disney. Anyone honest person with a brain and a sense of morality can see the abundance of sex-appeal in Walt Disney's numerous shows targeting teenagers.

And to think, independent Baptist churches use Walt Disney themes for the music programs to teach their kids... say it Baptist children... “HOORAY FOR WALT DISNEY!!!” Never-mind that Walt Disney himself was a bigtime pedophile who was so lustful toward children that he had to pack his genitals on ice (no kidding, search the internet). Better yet, read the shocking details about the entire Satanic Walt Disney family. ...

•The Disney Bloodline
•The Disney Deceit Part 1
•The Disney Deceit Part 2

Walt Disney's pathetic programs are aimed at teens, teaching teens that premarital sex is proper and expected of them to be a normal teenager. The Bible calls premarital sex “fornication” (Colossians 3:5-6; 1st Corinthians 5:1-5; 6:9-10). Walt Disney openly promotes premarital sex. Disney's programs (including animated) are saturated with lasciviousness and lewdness.

My heart's desire is not to condemn those of you who have messed-up your lives (God forbid); but rather, to help steer as many young people as I can away from the Satanic entertainment industry that wants to recruit you to hate Christianity, reject Jesus Christ, embrace homosexuals and their vile lifestyle of Sodomy, indulge in sexual immorality and become a revolutionary against authority. The only hope for America is repentance toward God and believing the Gospel, not getting people worked up to riot and revolt against the government. Rebels overthrowing rebels is not going to restore God-given liberty and freedoms which exist only by faith in God. America is very Communist today, but most people are so woefully ignorant that they don't see what's happening.

In the Old Testament book of Proverbs, God warns against the clothing and behavior of a harlot (prostitute). This describes Taylor Swift's videos in accurate detail ...

Proverbs 7:10-13, “And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.) So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him.”

Do you know what an “IMPUDENT FACE” is? It's that rebellious, casual look of disrespect, that prostitutes and whores use to seduce men. The following two screenshots show some examples of impudent faces. No Christian lady ought to ever look at men with an impudent face, because it is the look of whoredom, the look of a lack of respect for God and authority. ...

We are all proud at times, which is why we gossip, talk about others and sin wilfully against God (Romans 7:14-25). May we all with God's help refrain from such awful things. The first step to overcoming such wickedness is to develop a hatred for it, especially in ourselves. I hate gossip. I hate pride. I hate hearing the Lord's name taken in vain. I hate wickedness. The reason why I hate these things is because of God's Holy Spirit Who lives inside of me as a child of God (Romans 8:9). I wish I could shut Hollywood down. I wish I could forever close down Sin City Las Vegas. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Psalms 97:10 commands us all to HATE EVIL, just as the Lord hates evil.

Again, the middle letter of the words “SIN” and “PRIDE” is the letter “i.” When I say “overcoming sin” I don't mean sinless perfection, which is impossible in this earthly body. Proverbs 24:16, “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” Even the best Christians still commit sin, hurt others and mess-up at times. We all sin every day in deed and thought, whether it be failing to pray earnestly for our nation's leaders, gossiping, watching something unholy on television or taking our eyes off Jesus. When we become proud, we become blinded to our own sins and faults. There's nothing more disgusting than a self-righteousness person.

I'm a big sinner and I dare not condemn anyone for their sins. I preach against open wickedness in our degenerate American culture, and I earnestly expose falsehoods, but I judge no one. I once heard Dr. Jack Hyles say during a Sunday evening service, as I sat to his left listening intently from a pew in the back, that the best Christian in the auditorium probably felt like the worst Christian in the building. That made me feel better, because I did feel like the worst Christian in the building. You see, the closer you draw to God, the worse of sinner you'll feel like, as you see God's in His holiness. Hebrews 12:29, “For our God is a consuming fire.”

The dangerous thing about the sin of pride is that you often don't realize what's happening until it's too late and you're already deep-in-over-your-head. The Bible calls this dangerous tendency, “the deceitfulness of sin.” Hebrews 3:13, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” This Scripture means that the more sin is tolerated, the less awful it seems. The preacher John Wesley wisely said, “What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace!” That is so very true!

In the 1930's we tolerated legalized booze in the United States. Then we embraced Hollywood in the late 1940's. Whereas only 6,000 U.S. households owned a television in 1946, by 1952 it was 22,000,000 households who owned a TV set. Our nation tolerated Hugh Hefner's sinister Playboy philosophy in the 1950's, which led to an epidemic of sexual immorality in the 1960's. Consequently, the abortion industry became federal law in the 1970's, to dispose of unwanted children. And now after decades of tolerating Hollywood's sexually perverse influence, our nation has embraced the morally reprehensible homosexual agenda. This is all the result of arrogant, stiffnecked, sinful, pride!!!

Sin must never be allowed to go unchecked in our life, our family, our church or our community. This is why I preach hard and uncompromisingly against the new modern corrupt Bible versions! Most churches have become hardened (calloused) through the deceitfulness of sin, embracing Satan's counterfeits.

It is because of man's wicked pride that he refuses to seek after God. Psalms 10:4, “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.” As you just read, it is a sin not to include God IN ALL OUR THOUGHTS. When most people go on vacation, they usually leave God behind at home. They go to worldly places, don't pray, and forget about God while. God pity the backslidden believer that goes to Las Vegas (Sin City) for vacation. You couldn't pay me to go to Las Vegas, which is nothing but a place of sexual immorality.

Our nation's schools, universities and colleges are prisonhouses of ignorance, because they leave out God. Proverb 14:3, “In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.” An educator who leaves out God is a fool. 2nd Timothy 3:7, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

The Bible has much to say about the sin of pride. Proverb 13:10, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.” We read in Proverbs that “ONLY BY PRIDE” cometh contention—whether it be a rebellious wife filing for divorce, an abusive husband who mistreats his family, a greedy lawyer who bilks his clients, a dishonest salesman who cheats his customers, or a carnal believer who won't go soul-winning, et cetera. Proverb 13:10, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.”

Proverb 13:10, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.”
Proverb 13:10, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.”
Proverb 13:10, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.”
Proverb 13:10, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.”

My friend, ONLY BY SINFUL PRIDE comes contention. We all struggle with contention because we are sinners by nature and by choice. Divorces are always caused by the sin of pride. When we sin, it is because of pride. I don't care how much you try to avoid arguments, fighting and contention, they will happen for the rest of your life, because we are all sinners struggling with pride. Romans 12:18, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”

It is not always possible to live peaceably with all men, because many people are wicked and unreasonable. 2nd Thessalonians 3:1-2, “Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you: And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.” That is very interesting that the Apostle Paul requested the prayers of the believers at Thessalonica, that God would deliver them from unsaved enemies who were wicked and unreasonable.

America is quickly descending into wickedness because of sinful pride. It was pride that compelled the U.S. Supreme Court to remove and ban the Holy Bible from all U.S. classrooms in 1962-1963. Since that horrible decision, our nation has deteriorated significantly. I need the prayers of my web visitors, that God would continue to give this Gospel preacher free course to preach THE TRUTH on the internet. Like John the Baptist, I am a voice crying in the wilderness of cyberspace. Proverb:11:2, “When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.” We are losing our liberties and freedoms fast in the United States, because people are not fighting against the blatant encroachments against our God-given liberties. The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights do not grant us our rights, but merely outline our God-given inalienable rights. Give me liberty or give me death!!!