Priming (psychology)

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The term priming or facilitation referred to psychology to influence the processing ( cognition ) of a stimulus . In most cases, a previous stimulus activated implicit memory content. The connection of the stimulus with special associations in the memory, based on previous experiences, happens frequently and for the most part unconsciously .

Such a stimulating stimulus can be a word, a picture, a smell, a gesture or the like. The priming or pioneering stimulus activates bottom-up memory contents that determine top-down how quickly the subsequent stimulus is processed, or whether it is correctly recognized, or - in the case of ambiguous stimuli - how it is interpreted, or they influence the state of mind or subsequent behavior. The concept is based on the activation spread of associations.

Differentiation from related effects and terms

In the experimental psychology is generally referred to a "cue" (eng. Cue ) which indicates in an experiment of the subject that a "target stimulus" (Engl. Target ) will soon appear (ms range). The design of the reference stimulus should therefore be neutral, e.g. B. a normal-sized black bar, so that it can fulfill its display function, but otherwise does not affect the reaction speed or quality of the reaction. The subject is asked to ignore the cue . Prime stimuli are therefore a kind of special reference stimuli. These should be ignored by the test subject, but this is not possible due to the design of the prime. Example: The person should react to left and right arrows with a left and right button ( target ), the primes are also arrows that point to the left or right. This similarity significantly influences the reaction.

If the Prime is presented long enough, it is accessible to conscious awareness. If the Prime cannot be consciously perceived, it is called subliminal. Subliminal primes can still have an effect ( subliminal perception ).

The framing effect means that different formulations of a message - with the same content - influence the behavior of the recipient differently.

General types of priming

There are many special versions of the general priming concept.

Positive versus negative priming

A differentiation is possible, for example, according to whether the prime accelerates or delays the processing of the subsequent stimulus, improves or worsens the correct identification. In the first case one speaks of positive priming , in the second case of negative priming .

The distinction between positive and negative effects can be transferred to the other types of priming mentioned. This is the case with semantic priming: Semantically related words lead to facilitating effects (lower reaction time, fewer errors), while semantically unrelated words tend to lead to inhibiting effects .

Affective priming

If the processing of subsequent stimuli is influenced because emotional states were activated by the previous, "priming" stimulus, one speaks of affective priming .

Semantic priming

Semantic priming takes place via the activation of conceptual associations, for example via word fields.

Response priming

Response priming is a form of priming with very rapidly successive stimuli, each of which is linked to motor response alternatives. Response priming is particularly suitable for examining the influence of barely or not consciously perceptible stimuli.

Media priming

The media impact, called priming effects in the context of mass media certain behavioral or attitude changes explain the media priming .

Concrete examples

In all of the experiments described below, the test participants were influenced without them noticing.

Examples from perceptual psychology

  • In 1975 Stephen Palmer showed his subjects very briefly a picture of an object (for example a loaf of bread, a mailbox or a drum), which they correctly identified 40% of the time. However, if they saw a picture of a kitchen beforehand, the correct identification of the loaf of bread rose to 80%, but not of objects that do not fit into a kitchen picture.
  • Murphy and Zajonc (1993) showed their subjects either the image of a friendly, a neutral or an angry face for 10 milliseconds. Then the test subjects were asked to rate Chinese characters. The type of face had a significant influence on the evaluation of the characters. A friendly face, for example, led the test subjects to rate the characters as more positive.

Examples from social psychology

  • If you hold a pencil in your teeth (similar to a smile), comics are funnier than if you hold them in your mouth with your lips turned up (similar to a "pouting" expression).
  • People primed on the topic of "money" are more individualistic than the control group. They work longer on difficult tasks before asking for help; they are less helpful and prefer to be alone.
  • People primed on the subject of "aging" move more slowly.
  • People who have moved slowly for five minutes are better able to recognize words associated with the subject of "aging".
  • Anyone who remembers a shameful experience feels the need to wash.
  • If you are primed on the subject of “fear of dying”, you are more receptive to authoritarian ideas.
  • An experiment by Bargh and Pietromonaco showed that test subjects rated an ambivalent statement (for example, "A representative knocked, but Donald did not let him in.") As emotionally more hostile if they were subliminally tinged with emotionally hostile terms (for example, "insult", "Unfriendly") were primed.
  • The order of questions in interviews or on questionnaires can influence the result: Fritz Strack et al. submitted a questionnaire to a group of test persons, in which the following questions occurred:
- "How happy are you at the moment?"
- "How many appointments did you have in the past month?"
There was no connection between the answers to these questions in this order of questions (general / specific). They submitted the same questionnaire to another group, only reversing the order of these two questions (specific / general). Now there was a high association with a correlation coefficient of 0.66.

literature

  • Anna-Sophie Ulfert: Effects of priming on self-efficacy and goal setting , Gießen 2016, DNB 1116894432 (online dissertation University of Gießen 2016, 159 pages, full text - online , PDF, free of charge, 159 pages, 1.4 MB).
  • Matthias Willmann: How many guppies live in Santiago? To ubiquity of numerical priming the anchor effect , Kassel, 2004, DNB 971611548 (online dissertation University of Kassel in 2004, 162 pages, graphical representation of full-text online PDF, free of charge 162 pages, 2.1 MB).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David G. Myers: Psychology . Jumper; Edition: 2nd exp. u. updated edition 2008 (July 14, 2008). ISBN 978-3-540-79032-7 . Page 961.
  2. ↑ Susanne Mayr, Axel Buchner : Negative Priming as a Memory Phenomenon: A Review of 20 Years of Negative Priming Research . In: Zeitschrift für Psychologie / Journal of Psychology . tape 1 , no. 215 , 2007, p. 35-51 .
  3. ^ Stephen Palmer: The effects of contextual scenes on the identification of objects . In: Memory and Cognition . No. 3 , 1975, p. 519-526 .
  4. ↑ Murphy, Sheila & Zajonc, Robert. (1993). Affect, Cognition, and Awareness: Affective Priming With Optimal and Suboptimal Stimulus Exposures. Journal of personality and social psychology. 64, 723-39. 10.1037 // 0022-3514.64.5.723.
  5. ^ Fritz Strack , Leonard L. Martin, Sabine Stepper: Inhibiting and Facilitating Conditions of the Human Smile . In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . No. 54 , 1988, pp. 768-777 .
  6. ^ Daniel Kahneman : Thinking, fast and slow . Allen Lane Paperback, 2011, ISBN 978-1-84614-606-0 , pp. 55 f .
  7. ↑ KD Vohs, NL Mead, MR Goode: The Psychological Consequences of Money. In: Science. 314, 2006, p. 1154, doi: 10.1126 / science.1132491 .
  8. ↑ Krishna Savani, Nicole L. Mead et al. a .: No match for money: Even in intimate relationships and collectivistic cultures, reminders of money weaken sociomoral responses. ( Memento of the original of July 13, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / carlsonschool.umn.edu archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Self and Identity. 15, 2016, p. 342, doi: 10.1080 / 15298868.2015.1133451 .
  9. ↑ Bargh, JA , Chen, M., & Burrows, L .: Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype priming on action . In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . No. 71 , 1996, pp. 230-244 .
  10. ↑ Thomas Mussweiler : Doing Is for Thinking! Stereotype Activation by Stereotypic Movements . In: Psychological Science . No. 17 , 2006, p. 17-21 .
  11. ^ Chen-Bo Zhong, Katie Liljenquist, Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality and Physical Cleansing . In: Science . No. 313 , 2006, p. 1451 f .
  12. ^ Jeff Greenberg et al .: Evidence for Terror Management Theory II: The Effect of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Threaten or Bolster the Cultural Worldview . In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . No. 58 , 1990, pp. 308-318 .
  13. ↑ John Bargh, Paula Pietro Monaco: Automatic information processing and social perception: The influence of trait information presented outside of conscious awareness on impression formation . In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . No. 43 , 1982, pp. 437-449 .
  14. ^ Fritz Strack , Leonard L. Martin, Norbert Schwarz : Priming and Communication: The Social Determinants of Information Use in Judgments of Life Satisfaction . In: European Journal of Social Psychology . tape 5 , no. 18 , 1988, pp. 429-442 . , quoted n. Daniel Kahneman : Thinking, fast and slow . Allen Lane Paperback, 2011, ISBN 978-1-84614-606-0 , pp. 101 f .