Priming

What is priming?

Priming occurs when prior exposure to a stimulus affects a later response. The term covers several different phenomena, including recognizing related words, identifying previously encountered material, and proposed effects of social concepts on behavior. Evidence about one form should not be generalized to all forms.

Priming example: word recognition

In a classic experiment, Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) studied how semantic relationships between words affected the speed of word-recognition responses. In their first experiment, two letter strings appeared together, one above the other. Participants answered “yes” if both were words and “no” otherwise: a lexical decision. The materials included related pairs such as BREAD–BUTTER and unrelated pairs such as BREAD–DOCTOR. Correct “yes” responses were faster for related pairs. The measured effect was a difference in reaction time, not a change in how much participants liked bread or how they behaved afterward. The simultaneous display also differs from later procedures that present a prime before a target. This kind of laboratory finding concerns a specific task and measure, not broad changes in personality or everyday conduct.

Social and behavioral priming

Some claims that subtle exposure to a social concept changes complex behavior have proved difficult to reproduce. Shanks and colleagues (2013) reported failures to reproduce intelligence-priming effects across multiple experiments. A meta-analysis by Weingarten and colleagues (2016) reported an average effect of incidentally presented words on behavior, showing why the broader literature cannot be summed up in one simple conclusion.

Priming evidence and replication limits

It is inaccurate to call all priming discredited. It is also inaccurate to use a robust word-recognition result to validate an unrelated claim about money, intelligence, or consumer behavior. Assess the exact stimulus, outcome, study quality, and independent replication before making an applied claim.