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Behavioral Priming: It’s all in the Mind, but whose Mind?
Open accessAbstract
The perspective that behavior is often driven by unconscious determinants has become widespread in social psychology. Bargh, Chen, and Burrows' (1996) famous study, in which participants unwittingly exposed to the stereotype of age walked slower when exiting the laboratory, was instrumental in defining this perspective. Here, we present two experiments aimed at replicating the original study. Despite the use of automated timing methods and a larger sample, our first experiment failed to show priming. Our second experiment was aimed at manipulating the beliefs of the experimenters: Half were led to think that participants would walk slower when primed congruently, and the other half was led to expect the opposite. Strikingly, we obtained a walking speed effect, but only when experimenters believed participants would indeed walk slower. This suggests that both priming and experimenters' expectations are instrumental in explaining the walking speed effect. Further, debriefing was suggestive of awareness of the primes. We conclude that unconscious behavioral priming is real, while real, involves mechanisms different from those typically assumed to cause the effect.
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“When Doyen and colleagues49 attempted to replicate a previous experiment suggesting that priming participants with age-related stereotypes had an effect on walking speed50, they failed to find any significant results when using a double-blind procedure (prior studies were not blinded).”
From The limited prosocial effects of meditation: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2018) · cites this paper as [49]
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“As demonstrated by Doyen et al. [25] the experimenter who knows the participants’ condition may unintentionally act differently so that participants’ behavior may be altered to confirm the researcher’s hypothesis.”
From Failed Replication of Oxytocin Effects on Trust: The Envelope Task Case (2015) · cites this paper as [25]
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“The use of single blind studies, where the subject is blind to the treatment condition but the experimenter is not, introduces the risk that the experimenter might unconsciously influence the subjects (37).”
From Is there a Publication Bias in Behavioural Intranasal Oxytocin Research on Humans? Opening the File Drawer of One Laboratory (2016) · cites this paper as [37]
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“They further showed that when making some experimenters believe that priming participants with age-related stereotypes would slow them down, this indeed had a significant effect, but only in those experimenters that were made to believe in the stereotypes.”
From The limited prosocial effects of meditation: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2018) · cites this paper as [49]
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“Recent work indicates that experimenter biases are not a thing of the past.”
From The limited prosocial effects of meditation: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2018) · cites this paper as [49]
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Cites
Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.
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“As Nisbett and Wilson [20] famously pointed out, participants can remain (1) unaware of the stimulus, (2) unaware of their response, or (3) unaware of the fact that the stimulus importantly influenced the response.”
BackgroundThe unbearable automaticity of being
Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.54.7.462 · Cited by 3,699 · cited 1×
“Studies [22] on automatic behavior have suggested that participants tend to mimic the experimenter’s behavior.”
BackgroundThe chameleon effect: the perception–behavior link and social interaction
Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1999) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.6.893 · Cited by 3,674
Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.2.230 · Cited by 2,736
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Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: basic evidence and a workspace framework
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“For instance, several authors [9,10,11] suggest that two factors are necessary to produce the large patterns of neural activation in higher association cortices that are essential for semantic priming to occur: Top-down attention to the prime and bottom-up stimulus strength (e.”
BackgroundConscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: a testable taxonomy
Dehaene, S., Changeux, J.-P., Naccache, L., Sackur, J., & Sergent, C. (2006) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2006.03.007 · Cited by 2,067
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Cerebral mechanisms of word masking and unconscious repetition priming
Dehaene, S., Naccache, L., Cohen, L., Bihan, D. L., Mangin, J.-F., Poline, J.-B., & Rivière, D. (2001) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/89551 · Cited by 1,305
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Metadata
- Authors
- Doyen, S., Klein, O., Pichon, C.-L., & Cleeremans, A.
- Affiliations
- Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Doyen, Stéphane
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2012-01-18
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- e29081
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3261136
- OpenAlex
- W2047874726
- Cited by
- 670
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 45 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 64 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 49 · 2019: 51 · 2018: 50 · 2017: 43 · 2016: 44 · 2015: 60 · 2014: 56 · 2013: 43 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 179.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Dépôt institutionnel de l'Université libre de Bruxelles (Université Libre de Bruxelles) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychology of Social Influence
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Keywords
- behavioral priming, unconscious priming, replication failure, walking speed, age stereotypes, expectancy effects, debriefing
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Awareness, Behavior, Humans, Psychology, Social, Psychomotor Performance, Unconscious, Psychology, Word Association Tests, Walking, Young Adult
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