Priming Experiment

The human brain is a very complex and mysterious organ known to mankind. How the brain works, is still a work in progress, because we are still learning about our brain every day. Something about our brain we already know, is that the brain process every bit of information it receives through our unconscious mind and we act accordingly. This phenomenon can be described with the word priming; priming is defined as an implicit memory effect in which exposure to stimulus influences the near term future thoughts and action, even though they may not seem to be connected (Kennard). It also increases the speed at which the second related item is recognized. Priming has a limited effect as the thoughts dwindles back to the deeper subconscious. Typically,
Several priming experiment were discussed, and the results were astonishing. One of the experiment was, students were asked to walk down a corridor to their professor’s office and take the “scrambled sentence test.” Throughout the test, words like “worried”, “Florida,” “old,” “lonely,” “gray,” “bingo,” and “wrinkle” were involved, which was intended to prime the participants to fill old. As the participants left the office, the camera that recorded them coming in, recorded them leaving. The result in this experiment show that, the speed at which the left the office was significantly lower than the speed they entered the office (Gladwell, 53). In this situation , our unconscious is in control because it has “picked up some clues that we are in an environment that is really concerned about old age” Gladwell implies, referring to how our unconscious will interpret this clue, so “ let behave accordingly”(Gladwell, 58). In a lay man language, our unconscious is essentially “looking out” for us and keeping us in
For the last 10 years, Kathleen D. Vohs, a social psychologist, and her colleagues have conducted about 165 money priming experiment. Some of their conclusions were: money priming leads people to plan and work carefully. They put in time and effort when they have a job to do or goal to achieve, in order to receive the maximum profit. Money priming leads people to prefer low cost-cost goods and spend more time searching for price relevant information, indicating a focus on cost. Money priming leads people to prefer practical means and to adopt business-like attitude. They we feel independent and expect everyone to be independent too