Psyching Us Out

Psyching Us Out: The Promise of 'Priming'

It's time for a regular NYT article, taken from the all-so-dependable "The Stone" section. This article, written by Gary Gutting is all about priming. "Psyching Us Out: The Promise of 'Priming'"- a very interesting article. And it isn't long. So don't fret, click here and read! 

Have you guys hear of this priming experiment? (OF COURSE! Because you read the article..)? College students were asked to form various sentences from a given set of words. In one group people were given a set of words associated with older people (bingo, gray, Florida). The people in the second group weren't given those associations. Next each participant was instructed to leave the building by walking down the hallway. They were being timed without knowing it... and it turns out that the Test Group Old walked significantly slower than the control group. They were primed to walk more slowly. How weird is that! What do you think about priming? Have you ever been primed before, looking back now?

There are more priming examples. Needless to say, people have done a lot of research on priming. It's a subject that we like to learn about. 

What can we really learn about priming? "It is often said that they overturn a long entrenched view of human beings as models of rationality." What do you think of this idea? Is priming really that powerful? Or is it other factors? A combination? r are we models of rationality after all? Priming experiments are thought to provide powerful new tools for influencing human behavior. This has led Forbes and Morningstar to cite value in what they call "behavioral economics".

Gutting asserts, though, that priming experiments "seldom tell us how important priming is in realistic situations." Knowing the effects under highly simplified and controlled laboratory conditions hardly helps us know the effects in real life, when conditions aren't all being controlled and there are so many other unrelated stimuli constantly influencing us. Additionally, "there is seldom any reason to think that even a strong priming effect will last very long." So, really what is the significance of priming? Is it something we should continue to study and look into? What do you think we might end up gaining by further exploration of priming? if anything.. Even John Bargh, a main researcher on priming, admitted in 2006 that priming experiments had the problem of "ecological validity." Do you think that some priming is just common sense? Like the examples with the super markets and credit cards? 

Personally, I am a little ehh about the whole thing. I think the experiments are really cool- I almost don't really believe them- but I have yet to note how they have much relevance on my life, especially if they don't have lasting effects.