Behavioral Grooves Podcast

Want to Know How Priming Works? It Starts With Your Conscious, Not Your Unconscious | John Bargh PhD

Sep 19, 2022

01:17:50

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Quick takeaways

Consciousness plays a pivotal role in how priming, an unconscious effect, actually works.

Meta-analyses confirm that priming can significantly influence behavior, particularly for personally important goals.

Priming and expectation theory operate through different mechanisms, challenging the idea that they are fundamentally the same.

Deep dives

Meta-Analyses Validate the Robustness of Priming Effects

Meta-analyses conducted by Dolores Albaracín and Zhao Chen demonstrate the robustness and validity of priming effects across hundreds of studies. These meta-analyses encompass both verbal priming and the impact of priming on goals and behaviors. The findings indicate that priming effects are reliable, with a moderate effect size, particularly for goals that are personally important. The meta-analyses confirm that priming can significantly influence behavior and performance, even in real-world settings.

What Is Consciousness For?

02:45

Is Sober Driving the Biggest Cause of Accidents?

04:06

Are the Priming Effects a Consequence of the Replication Crisis?

04:58

Introduction

5min

Which Football Team Do You Have to Root For?

3min

Why Priming Is Getting a Bad Rap?

5min

What Happens With Priming?

3min

Do You Think Priming Needs to Go?

3min

The Power of Mind Over Body

3min

Why Framing Is Not Priming?

2min

What's the History of Priming?

5min

What Are the Priming Effect Potentials?

3min

10.

What Was the Catalyst of the Cognitive Revolution?

6min

11.

What Is Consciousness For?

3min

12.

Are the Priming Effects a Consequence of the Replication Crisis?

5min

13.

What Makes Good Science From Bad Science?

4min

14.

The Impact of Science Journalism on Public Opinion

2min

15.

Is Sober Driving the Biggest Cause of Accidents?

4min

16.

Do You Have a Spotify List?

2min

17.

You Know, I'm Into Music, Right?

2min

18.

The Grooving Session - Global Workplace Workspace Theory

3min

19.

Do Priming for Goals Really Hold Water?

5min

20.

The Theater Metaphor

1min

21.

Priming - Is Consciousness Imperative?

6min

22.

Grooving Session - I Don't Know What I Think Until I Hear What I Say

3min

“The primary source of unconscious priming…is your conscious experience.” Our consciousness is where we bring everything together, where we integrate and form a rich integration of our experience. This result is that this experience gets spread out to all the processes of the mind which is pivotal to how priming, an unconscious effect, actually works.

Dr John Bargh PhD is a researcher and professor at Yale University and is probably the leading researcher on behavioral priming and has been studying this topic for almost 40 years. Not only that but he is a long term friend of Behavioral Grooves Podcast.

In this episode with John, we explore with him both the past and future of priming as well as some of the controversies surrounding it.

“The more important the goal, the more primable it is”

Topics

(4:36) Welcome and speed round questions.

(7:50) Why priming gets a bad rap.

(13:01) What exactly is a prime?

(16:17) Where does future research in priming need to go?

(19:46) How does priming differ from expectation theory and the placebo effect?

(22:33) How is framing not priming?

(24:07) What is the summation of experience?

(32:02) The stupid reason John went into social psychology.

(40:51) What the meta analysis studies on priming have found.

(45:50) Science communication: how to tell the good science from the bad.

(49:03) The importance of podcasting to bridge the gap between science and people.

(1:00:03) Grooving session with Tim and Kurt on priming.

Links

John Bargh's book “Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do”: https://amzn.to/3yUHka8

Episode 248, Do We Control Situations or Do Situations Control Us? With John Bargh: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/control-situations-with-john-bargh/

Episode 155, John Bargh: Dante, Coffee and the Unconscious Mind: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/john-bargh-unconscious-mind/

Global Workspace Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_workspace_theory

Bargh JA. “What have we been priming all these years? On the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior.” Eur J Soc Psychol. 2006: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19844598/

Shinobu Kitayama, University of Michigan: https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/kitayama.html

Daphna Oyserman, University of Southern California: https://dornsife.usc.edu/daphna-oyserman

Paul J. Reber, Northwestern University: https://www.reberlab.psych.northwestern.edu/people/paul/

Daniel Schacter, “Amnesia observed: Remembering and forgetting in a natural environment” (1983): https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1983-26025-001

Parafoveal Processing: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/parafoveal-processing

Jeffrey W. Sherman (2017) “A Final Word on Train Wrecks”: https://psychology.ucdavis.edu/people/sherm/cv

Evan Weingarten, Qijia Chen, Maxwell McAdams, Jessica Yi, Justin Hepler, Dolores Albarracin (2016) “On Priming Action: Conclusions from a Meta-Analysis of the Behavioral Effects of Incidentally-Presented Words”: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27957520/

Xiao Chen, Gary P. Latham, Ronald F. Piccolo, Guy Itzchakov (2019) “An Enumerative Review and a Meta-Analysis of Primed Goal Effects on Organizational Behavior”: https://iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/apps.12239

Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs (2003): “Sobriety Epidemic Endangers Nation’s Well-Being”: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/sobriety-epidemic-endangers-nations-well-being

Episode 147, Gary Latham, PhD: Goal Setting, Prompts, Priming, and Skepticism: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/gary-latham-goal-setting-prompts/

Musical Links

AC/DC “Hells Bells”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etAIpkdhU9Q

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets “Acid Dent”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuQyIQ0NA0k

Acid Dad “Searchin’”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzSwzUAqVWw

The Orb “Blue Room”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ8nTbS9mOE

Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg

Pearl Jam “Black”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgaRVvAKoqQ

The Who “Who You Are”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNbBDrceCy8

Led Zeppelin “All My Love”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXC87EABywo

Dead Pirates “Alexis”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9FsgAyZop4