Social Priming, Failed Replications, and Egos

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a good article on social priming—the effects on our behavior from subtle cues in our social environment. It reviews some of the key studies such as the famous elderly prime makes people walk more slowly finding. There is an appropriately strong focus on John Bargh, whose studies made the effect well known, as well as some of the individuals who have had trouble replicating his results. As it remains today, there is serious doubt about whether the effect is very robust. Instead, there might be some moderators that enhance or weaken the effect that are unknown. If there is anything good coming out of this, it may be that we start begin respecting the publication of failed replications. That will be good for the entire discipline.

Link to the article at the Chronicle.

Image courtesy Flickr user sunnydelishgirl. Licensed under Creative Commons

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Dana C. Leighton, Ph.D.

I am a social psychologist, broadly interested in the psychological basis of peace and conflict. I am working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a Program Analyst, leading our survey research to better understand how our disaster response is promoting equity in service delivery, workforce readiness, and recovery and mitigation efforts.

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