Bumper stickers are a cultural enigma in a society filled with constant exposure to all facets of advertising and media messages. Whether we like it or not, and mostly we don't like it, we are under attack by subliminal and overt sales campaigns with a wide variety of slogans and witty catch phrases meant to stick in our thoughts and fuel our desire for a product, service, candidate, etc.

We are a captive audience as we sit in our own vehicle at a red light or drive along the highway possibly experiencing a roller coaster of emotion when reading the bumper stickers of vehicles. Each blanket statement seems to erudiate specific knowledge that the other vehicle owner feels compelled to share. We sometimes feel just outside the fringe of a secret society of people who will, every now and then, share what they know and then retract back to the secret society leaving us wanting more of the closely held unique knowledge. Definitely in league with the Greek god Hermes who delivered messages from Olympus to the mortal world.

But who are these Mercurian messengers and why the need to bumper sticker through the byways of life? Eliminating the occasional soccer mom or proud parent of an honor roll student, do the drivers believe that they can cause an immediate conversion to their way of thinking by virtue of the more impactful bumper stickers? Theories abound but none more than the need to be heard in a fast paced world that often does not listen, and certainly not attentively. There is an overwhelming desire in each of us to establish and affirm core values and express individual or group identity. It is also about personal space or territory and the car itself perceived as the very epicenter, even extension, of this imagined but definitive territory.

The June issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology establishes bumper stickers as strongly defined territorial markers further stating "Mere presence of a territory maker predicts increased use of the vehicle to express anger and decreased use of adaptive/constructive expressions". The more bumper stickers on any single vehicle the more prone the driver may be to bouts of road rage. I certainly don't believe that every vehicle with a bumper sticker means the driver is out to get me but it is certainly something I will keep in mind as I make my way via three separate interstates back and forth to work each day.

Learn more about this author, Sharon Ruth Hill.
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