Subliminal flag-waving discourages extreme ideas 05 December 2007 From New Scientist Print Edition. As if emotional campaign messages weren't enough, politicians now have another way to try to win over the electorate. A study in Israel shows that voters can be manipulated into changing their attitudes by being shown subliminal images of their national flag. A team led by psychologist Ran Hassin at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem divided volunteers into two groups: those who strongly identified with Israeli nationalism and those who identified with it only weakly. They then quizzed them about their attitude to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after...