Increased accessibility of semantic concepts after (more or less) subtle activation of related concepts

Support for the basic tenet of priming research

Bibliographic Data

ID10123978
AuthorsTristan Marhenke (Fresenius University of Applied Science Düsseldorf, corresponding author), Roland Imhoff (0000-0003-0807-463X, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
Year2019
Volume147
Issue2
Pages186-211
Publication date2019-09-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of General Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-1309 • E-ISSN: 1940-0888
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00221309.2019.1665489
PMID31538546
OpenAlexW2973478616
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited28

Increasingly remote concepts and behaviors have been primed, which have come under increasing criticism. In this present experiment, we take a step back and try to strengthen the roots of priming research. In this experiment, we systematically varied the activation or priming of a concept in six experiments ( N = 1285). We then measured accessibility for semantic concepts using a word stem completion task. Across the six experiments, our investigations showed that the activation of semantic concepts is possible through greater accessibility of semantically congruent words (with only one experiment failing to reach a conventional level of significance). These results provide a prerequisite for further investigation into behavioral priming. The present experiment showed that the basal priming mechanisms are robust effects. The meta-analytic integration showed that women reliably had access to more baby-related words. A possible explanation is that social role stereotypes associate women more with the reproductive sphere than men and that women, to a certain extent, internalize these societal views. Other explanations and potential future applications are discussed

Biology · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Lexical decision task · Linguistics · Priming (agriculture · Task (project management · Word (group theory · Behavioral Health and Interventions · Child and Animal Learning Development · Neuroscience · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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