Need for Cognition Can Magnify or Attenuate Priming Effects in Social Judgment

Abstract

This article hypothesizes that the individual-difference variable, need for cognition (NFC), can have opposite implications for priming effects, depending on prime blatancy. Subtle primes are argued to be more effective for high- versus low-NFC individuals. This is because for high-NFC individuals, (a) constructs are generally easier to activate, (b) their higher amount of thought offers more opportunity for an activated construct to bias judgment, and (c) their thoughtfully formed judgments are more likely to affect behavior. However, because high-NFC individuals are adept at identifying and correcting for bias, with blatant primes the activated construct should be less likely to exert its default influence. Furthermore, with blatant primes, low-NFC individuals may achieve sufficient activation for primes to affect judgment. Across three studies, it is shown that as NFC increases, the magnitude of priming effects increases with a subtle prime but decreases with a blatant prime.

Women’s concerns about the emotional impact of awareness of heritable breast cancer risk and its implications for their children

“…Higher levels of this trait are often associated with better decision outcomes (Dunphy et al 2010), perhaps reflecting the effort these individuals devote to cognitive processing of information to inform their choices. However, those with a high need for cognition also tend to experience cognitive biases stemming from effortful thought processing, including worry and rumination (Chiou and Yang 2010;Petty et al 2008Petty et al , 2009). Petty and colleagues (2008) note those highly in need for cognition are more susceptible to subtle (vs. blatant) priming effects or the effect that having been exposed to one stimulus might have on one's response to another later stimulus.…”

The effects of power on prosocial outcomes: A self-validation analysis

“…Prime words included in this task were associated with competition (compete, victory, battle, strive, succeed, loser, best, worst, pedestal, executive) or cooperation (cooperate, together, assist, help, support, mutual, team, reciprocal, share, collective), whereas the 22 filler words were unrelated to either prime (e.g., bridge, shoes, sweater, recliner). Similar tasks have been used successfully to prime other constructs (e.g., Petty, DeMarree, Briñol, Horcajo, & Strathman, 2008) and prime words were similar to those used in past research that has primed the constructs of competition or cooperation (e.g., Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Trötschel, 2001;Kay & Ross, 2003). The order of prime and filler words was random for each participant.…”

From Primed Construct to Motivated Behavior

“…The ten prime words included in this task were associated with pursuing either competitive / pro-self (compete, victory, battle, strive, succeed, loser, best, worst, pedestal, executive) or cooperative / pro-social goals (cooperate, together, assist, help, support, mutual, team, reciprocal, share, collective), whereas the 22 filler words were unrelated to either prime (e.g., bridge, shoes, vacuum, recliner). Similar tasks have been used successfully to prime other constructs (e.g., Mussweiler & Neumann, 2000;Petty, DeMarree, Briñol, Horcajo, & Strathman, 2008). The prime words were similar to those used in other research that has primed competition or cooperation goals (e.g., Bargh et al, 2001).…”