Flags are powerful symbols. They appear on ships, parliaments, schools, lapels and even-sometimes-underwear. Exactly what effect they have on people's behaviour, though, is seldom a topic of scientific inquiry.Melissa Ferguson of Cornell University is trying to change that. In 2007 she and her colleagues conducted a study in Israel. They found that those who had had subliminal exposure to their country's flag before being asked their political views expressed more moderate opinions about the Palestinian conflict than did those who were not shown the flag. Now Dr Ferguson has tried something similar in America, and found what some might see as a rather different effect: an enhanced tendency to vote Republican.
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