I interviewed 60 Brits to debunk one of psychology’s greatest myths. Priming is one of the best-known biases in behavioural science. Kahneman mentions it 35 times in his best-selling book Thinking Fast and Slow. And yet, I’m not convinced it really works. In five separate experiments, I tested it. Does priming work, or is it a myth? 

The studies: 

Authenticity study: https://ibb.co/5W14DM2N

Creativity study: https://ibb.co/FbxxNMDf

Guilty study: https://ibb.co/XrTLXrY4

Anchoring + priming study: https://ibb.co/99LLw7G9

Reading time study: https://ibb.co/LDYc18yF

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Sources: 

Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), 230–244.

Chernev, A. (2011). Semantic anchoring in sequential evaluations of vices and virtues. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(5), 761–774.

Doyen, S., Klein, O., Pichon, C. L., & Cleeremans, A. (2012). Behavioral priming: It's all in the mind, but whose mind? PLoS ONE, 7(1), e29081.

Fitzsimons, G. J., Chartrand, T. L., & Fitzsimons, G. M. (2008). Automatic effects of brand exposure on motivated behavior: How Apple makes you “think different”. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(1), 21–35.

Goldsmith, K., Cho, E., & Dhar, R. (2012). Priming creativity: The effects of subliminal priming on creative problem solving. In Z. Gürhan-Canli, C. Otnes, & R. Zhu (Eds.), Advances in Consumer Research (Vol. 40, pp. 472–473). Association for Consumer Research.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kahneman, D. (2012, September 26). A letter to the priming research community [Open email].