Sex is at the top of our unconscious minds

sexy-womanHere’s news that probably won’t shock you: sex is at the top of our unconscious minds. And, when marketers ask us, we won’t come close to admitting it.

A fascinating new study by Young & Rubicam provides insights into what we say vs. what we really think. The firm, in conjunction with Adelphi University psychologist Joel Weinberger, used implicit association testing to compare what consumers in the U.S., China, and Brazil said was important to them to what was subconsciously important. (To learn more about this kind of test and even take some yourself, check out Harvard’s Project Implicit.)

Sex and the Global Brain

Perhaps not surprisingly, although “sexual satisfaction” was rated at #14 out of 16 total categories by consumers in the three global markets, it emerged as #1 in the unconscious testing. Geoffrey Miller, a prof specializing in evolutionary psychology and author of Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior, probably has a big smile on his face when he sees these results. They certainly seem to bear out his thesis that a huge amount of our behavior is driven by “mating” instincts, even though most of our activities have little to do with actual sex.