Social Priming

Reality Through a Lens

While we may generally believe that there is a true reality, one that is accessible and demonstrable, we also must understand that our ability to understand and align to that true reality is marred by our own abilities to perceive that reality.

As humans, every series of events is viewed through a lens of our worldview & mindset in one sense, but more accurately it is viewed through our worldview & mindset at a particular point in time.

Think of a time in your past when you got upset at someone for a small infraction they made against you. Can you imagine there being a different set of circumstances where your perception of that event may have changed? Perhaps if you got more sleep earlier, or the barista wasn't rude to you in the coffee shop, or if that person's tone of voice was slightly different?

The facts of what the "offender" did to you did not change, but I am sure we can all imagine our current mindset impacting our reaction to them at different times.

This is the idea of social priming. Our message is most effective when people's current mindsets have been altered to make them more receptive to the request(s) we are making of them (e.g. vote a certain way, believe a new idea, etc).

Social Priming Explained

There is considerable evidence that priming an audience's mindset before making a request impact's their reception and compliance with that request. Often, this priming impacts the audience without their conscious awareness. Here are several examples examples:

Bargh, Chen, & Burrows (1996) - "Automaticity of Social Behavior"

In this experiment, participants were primed with words related to elderly stereotypes (e.g., "Florida," "bingo," "gray") or neutral words. After the priming, participants walked more slowly down a hallway compared to those who were not primed with the elderly-related words. This study demonstrated how subtle priming can influence behavior unconsciously.

Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998) - "The Relation Between Perception and Behavior, or How to Win a Game of Trivial Pursuit"

Participants were primed with either professor-related or soccer hooligan-related words before completing a general knowledge quiz. Those primed with professor-related words performed better on the quiz compared to those primed with soccer hooligan-related words. This study showed how priming can affect cognitive performance.

Mazar, Amir, & Ariely (2008) - "The Dishonesty of Honest People"

Participants were primed with subtle reminders of their moral code by being asked to recall the Ten Commandments or a neutral topic. They were then given an opportunity to cheat in a subsequent task. Those who were primed with reminders of the Ten Commandments were less likely to cheat compared to those who were not primed. This study highlighted how priming with moral concepts can influence ethical behavior.

Kay, Wheeler, Bargh, & Ross (2004) - "Material Priming: The Influence of Mundane Physical Objects on Situational Construal and Competitive Behavioral Choice"

Participants were exposed to images of money or neutral objects before engaging in a competitive task. Those primed with images of money were more likely to exhibit competitive and self-interested behavior compared to those primed with neutral objects. This study demonstrated how exposure to money-related stimuli can influence social behavior.

Cesario & McDonald (2013) - "Bodies in Context: Power Poses as a Manipulation of Perceived and Actual Dominance"

Participants were asked to adopt either high-power poses (expansive, open postures) or low-power poses (contractive, closed postures) before engaging in a negotiation task. Those who adopted high-power poses reported feeling more powerful and were more likely to engage in dominant behavior during the negotiation compared to those who adopted low-power poses. This study showed how nonverbal cues can prime feelings of power and influence subsequent behavior.

How the Pro-Life Movement Should Leverage Priming

There are numerous ways we can capitalize on this phenomenon of human psychology. However, rathe rthan prescribing specific ideas to start, we should first understand why priming works so we can find new ways to leverage it.

Understand Schemas

A schema is a set of interconnected ideas that humans naturally create. When one idea is triggered, it naturally triggers several other related concepts. As we encounter ideas or events, our existing schemas are activated and can distort how we perceive those triggers.

One classic experiment that demonstrates the existence of schemas in our minds is the work of Bartlett (1932) titled "Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology."

In this experiment, participants were asked to read a Native American folk tale titled "The War of the Ghosts." Then, they were asked to recall the story at various intervals over time. Bartlett found that participants tended to distort the story in ways that reflected their own cultural schemas and expectations. For example, they omitted unfamiliar details, changed elements to make them more consistent with their own cultural norms, and altered the sequence of events to fit their expectations.

This study demonstrated how our existing schemas, or mental frameworks of knowledge, influence our encoding, interpretation, and recall of information. It illustrated that we don't simply memorize information verbatim but rather reconstruct it based on our existing mental frameworks, highlighting the role of schemas in cognition.

Impact on Behavior and Beliefs

While this all may sound theoretical and abstract, we must remember that these schemas have actual impacts on people's physical, emotional, and cognitive behavior. A pro-life people, we can dismiss this research if we wish and focus merely on "shouting facts," but we will do so at our own detriment. We can significantly improve our persuasion if we consult the expertise of psychological studies to understand how we can make the same argument significantly more effective by leveraging priming, along with other tools we discuss in this repository.

As proof, consider the examples above including Bargh's "Automaticity of Social Behavior." In that experiment, when primed with words signaling "elderly" ideas, people literally walked slower out of the room than other participants. Their physical behavior changed with the mere suggestion of an idea.

Further, consider the work of Spencer, Steele, and Quinn (1999) titled "Stereotype Threat and Women's Math Performance."

In this experiment, female participants were primed with either their gender identity or their ethnic identity before taking a math test. The results showed that when primed with their gender identity, women performed worse compared to when primed with their ethnic identity or when no priming was provided. This phenomenon is known as stereotype threat, where individuals underperform in situations where negative stereotypes about their group are salient.

The study highlighted how subtle cues about social identity can influence performance, particularly in domains where negative stereotypes exist.