ReportsWhen do primes prime? The moderating role of the self-concept in individuals’ susceptibility to priming effects on social behavior
Section snippets
When do primes prime?
It is well documented that exposure to trait and stereotype primes can affect social behavior. In a seminal paper by Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996), participants primed with rudeness interrupted a conversation faster than participants primed with politeness. In another experiment, participants exposed to elderly stereotype-related words walked down a hallway more slowly than did control participants. These effects have been widely replicated across many behavioral domains, such as helping
The present research
In two experiments, we gathered evidence for the role of the two proposed factors. We primed participants with religious, business, and neutral words, and examined the effects on decisions in economic decision-making situations. Religious and business concepts have been found to be associated with cooperation and competition, respectively (De Dreu, Yzerbyt, & Leyens, 1995). In addition to primes, we examined the influence of a disposition, part of individuals’ self-concept, that is known as
Experiment 1
Participants played a dictator game (Bohnet & Frey, 1999). They allocated outcomes between themselves and another person who had no money to allocate and no power in terms of either accepting or rejecting the “dictator’s” offer. Participants’ SVO and consistency of SVO were measured with the Ring Measure. After a long filler task, participants were randomly assigned to three priming conditions: neutral, religious, and business primes.
Based on our hypothesis that individuals with highly
Experiment 2
Experiment 2 aimed at providing evidence that there are circumstances where low consistent SVO individuals can resist priming influences. By activating the self-concept, low consistent individuals’ chronic self-concept content may become more accessible and overcome priming influences. Research in social cognition suggests that one-way to reduce priming effects on behavior and make one’s goals and dispositions more accessible is by temporarily activating the self-concept. Temporarily activating
General discussion
This research examined two boundary conditions of priming influences on behavior. A first, and important, boundary condition for priming effects is the chronic accessibility of behavioral responses. We predicted and found in Experiment 1 that high consistent SVO individuals were impervious to primed religious and business constructs in contrast to low consistent SVO individuals. In addition, we found that only the behavior of high consistent SVO was directed by their own SVO, whereas the
Conclusion
In two studies, we examined individuals’ susceptibility to priming influences. We found evidence for two factors that can determine whether individuals’ behavior is determined by priming influences or by the own self-concept: (a) the chronic accessibility of the self-concept, and (b) the momentary activation of the self-concept. The present work on the role of the self-concept in resisting or facilitating priming influences sheds new light on the complex and dynamic nature of situation ×
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Cited by (29)
Evidence that increasing self-concept clarity tends to reduce the role of emotional contagion in predicting one's emotional intelligence regarding a romantic partner
2022, Personality and Individual DifferencesCitation Excerpt :Similarly, Smeesters et al. (2009) found that individuals with less accessible self-knowledge were more susceptible to priming effects; and Cuperman et al. (2014) showed that people with a weak sense of self were more likely to temporarily “take on” the personality characteristics of their interaction partner. Finally, Smeesters et al. (2009) found that individuals with less accessible self-knowledge were more susceptible to priming effects compared to individuals with highly accessible self-knowledge. Similarly, our results suggest that low self-concept clarity individuals may be more susceptible emotional contagion because it is unconstrained by the more nuanced distinctions between self's and other's emotions that are found in individuals with greater self-concept clarity.
Chapter Five: Indirect prime-to-behavior effects: The role of perceptions of the self, others, and situations in connecting primed constructs to social behavior
2010, Advances in Experimental Social PsychologyCitation Excerpt :They also showed (4) that person perceptions can also mediate prime-to-behavior effects in situations in which participants do not have to perform a behavior that is explicitly directed toward others present in the situation (such as allocating outcomes to another person), but a behavior executed in the mere presence of another person. In one experiment, Smeesters et al. (2009b) examined participants' behavior in an ultimatum game, which is an interpersonal setting that by default does not entail a natural high level of other-focus and is therefore well suited for manipulations that temporarily increase it (Güth et al., 1982). In ultimatum games, people know that the other is always better off by accepting the offer than by rejecting the offer, independent of the fairness of the offer, and therefore consideration of the other is limited (Andreoni et al., 2003; Forsythe et al., 1994).
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