Going back to Donald: how comparisons shape judgmental priming effects.

The authors examine how judgmental priming effects are shaped by comparisons. Specifically, they suggest that concept priming involves spontaneous activation of concept-consistent standards, which are then spontaneously compared to the judgmental target. In 6 studies, they used a variety of priming methods (contextual cue, subliminal priming, indirect priming) to test these notions of spontaneous standard activation and spontaneous comparison. Study 1 demonstrates that priming a trait concept activates concept-consistent standards. Study 2 suggests that these activated standards contribute to priming effects. If alternative standards that are not particularly consistent with the primed concept are activated, priming effects diminish. Studies 3-6 show that the magnitude and direction of priming effects depend on the intensity and the type of the engaged comparison. Specifically, Study 3 demonstrates that the magnitude of a priming effect depends on the intensity of comparative processing. Studies 4 through 6 show that the direction of a priming effect (assimilation vs. contrast) depends on whether judges engage in a similarity or dissimilarity testing comparison mechanism--a factor which has been found to shape comparison consequences in other domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).

[1]  Z. Kunda,et al.  Superstars and me : Predicting the impact of role models on the self , 1997 .

[2]  R. Wyer,et al.  Social Cognition, Inference, and Attribution , 1979 .

[3]  H. H. Clark,et al.  Adjectives, Comparatives, and Syllogisms. , 1971 .

[4]  A. van Knippenberg,et al.  The relation between perception and behavior, or how to win a game of trivial pursuit. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[5]  Allan Collins,et al.  A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing , 1975 .

[6]  Nira Liberman,et al.  The effect of global versus local processing styles on assimilation versus contrast in social judgment. , 2008, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  C. Stangor,et al.  A "change-of-standard" perspective on the relations among context, judgment, and memory. , 1988, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[8]  T. K. Srull,et al.  Memory and Cognition in Its Social Context , 1989 .

[9]  Nira Liberman,et al.  9. Knowledge activation , 2007 .

[10]  J. Bargh,et al.  The automated will: nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[11]  Michaela Wänke,et al.  Reducing Context Effects by Adding Context Information: The Direction and Size of Context Effects in Political Judgment , 2000 .

[12]  D T Gilbert,et al.  When comparisons arise. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  Duane T. Wegener,et al.  The Flexible Correction Model: The Role of Naive Theories of Bias in Bias Correction , 1997 .

[14]  T. Mussweiler,et al.  Sources of Mental Contamination: Comparing the Effects of Self-Generated versus Externally Provided Primes☆ , 2000 .

[15]  Differential-effects of Priming At the Encoding and Judgment Stage , 1991 .

[16]  E. Higgins.  Knowledge activation: Accessibility, applicability, and salience. , 1996 .

[17]  N. Mandel,et al.  Positive and Negative Media Image Effects on the Self , 2006 .

[18]  K. Gergen,et al.  Social comparison, self-consistency, and the concept of self. , 1970, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[19]  Leonard L. Martin,et al.  Assimilation and contrast as a function of people's willingness and ability to expend effort in forming an impression. , 1990 .

[20]  P. Devine.  Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. , 1989 .

[21]  J. Bargh,et al.  Environmental control of goal-directed action: automatic and strategic contingencies between situations and behavior. , 1994, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation.

[22]  Eliot R. Smith,et al.  Exemplar-Based Model of Social Judgment , 1992 .

[23]  Norbert Schwarz,et al.  Mental Construal Processes: The Inclusion/Exclusion Model. , 2007 .

[24]  F. Strack.  The different routes to social judgments: Experiential versus informational strategies , 1992 .

[25]  David E. J. Linden,et al.  The neural substrates of person comparison—An fMRI study , 2008, NeuroImage.

[26]  Norbert Schwarz,et al.  Constructing reality and its alternatives: an inclusion/ exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects in social judgment , 1992 .

[27]  Michael A. Becker.  Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles , 1998 .

[28]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  Estimating and testing mediation and moderation in within-subject designs. , 2001, Psychological methods.

[29]  P. Herr,et al.  On the consequences of priming: Assimilation and contrast effects , 1983 .

[30]  Arie W. Kruglanski,et al.  Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles, 2nd ed. , 2007 .

[31]  T. Mussweiler,et al.  I know you are, but what am I? Self-evaluative consequences of judging in-group and out-group members. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  Anthony G. Greenwald,et al.  Psychological foundations of attitudes , 1968 .

[33]  L. Festinger.  A Theory of Social Comparison Processes , 1954 .

[34]  C. Judd,et al.  Evidence for racial prejudice at the implicit level and its relationship with questionnaire measures. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[35]  J. J. Seta,et al.  The impact of comparison processes on coactors' task performance. , 1982 .

[36]  G. Moskowitz,et al.  Contrast effects as determined by the type of prime: Trait versus exemplar primes initiate processing strategies that differ in how accessible constructs are used. , 1999 .

[37]  A. Cooper,et al.  Consequences of Priming : Judgment and Behavior , 2004 .

[38]  M. Biernat.  Standards and Expectancies: Contrast and Assimilation in Judgments of Self and Others , 2005 .

[39]  R. Abelson.  Statistics As Principled Argument , 1995 .

[40]  T. K. Srull,et al.  The Role of Category Accessibility in the Interpretation of Information About Persons: Some Determinants and Implications , 1979 .

[41]  M. Biernat,et al.  Simultaneous assimilation and contrast effects in judgments of self and others. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[42]  H. Aarts,et al.  Positive affect as implicit motivator: on the nonconscious operation of behavioral goals. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[43]  T. K. Srull,et al.  Person memory and judgment. , 1989, Psychological review.

[44]  F. Strack,et al.  The "relative self": informational and judgmental consequences of comparative self-evaluation. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[45]  C. Neil Macrae,et al.  Syrian science and smart supermodels: On the when and how of perception-behavior effects , 2002 .

[46]  J. Bargh.  What have we been priming all these years? On the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior. , 2006, European journal of social psychology.

[47]  Eliot R. Smith.  Procedural knowledge and processing strategies in social cognition. , 1994 .

[48]  R. Schvaneveldt,et al.  Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations. , 1971, Journal of experimental psychology.

[49]  D. Stapel.  In the Mind of the Beholder: The Interpretation Comparison Model of Accessibility Effects. , 2007 .

[50]  Deborah A. Small,et al.  Heart Strings and Purse Strings , 2004, Psychological science.

[51]  Diederik A. Stapel,et al.  The impact of interpretation versus comparison mindsets on knowledge accessibility effects. , 2001 .

[52]  T. Mussweiler,et al.  The sex-->aggression link: a perception-behavior dissociation. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[53]  E. Higgins,et al.  Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles. , 1996 .

[54]  T. Mussweiler.  Comparison processes in social judgment: mechanisms and consequences. , 2003, Psychological review.

[55]  T. Mussweiler,et al.  The man who wasn't there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation ☆ , 2004 .

[56]  J. Bargh,et al.  Automatic information processing and social perception: The influence of trait information presented outside of conscious awareness on impression formation. , 1982 .

[57]  Kai Epstude,et al.  INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES The Ups and Downs of Social Comparison: Mechanisms of Assimilation and Contrast , 2022 .

[58]  Ladd Wheeler,et al.  Motivation as a determinant of upward comparison , 1966 .

[59]  W Koomen,et al.  Distinctness of others, mutability of selves: their impact on self-evaluations. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[60]  Ran R. Hassin,et al.  Goal contagion: perceiving is for pursuing. , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[61]  Joop van der Pligt,et al.  Categories of Category Accessibility: The Impact of Trait Concept versus Exemplar Priming on Person Judgments ☆ , 1997 .

[62]  B. Buunk,et al.  When better-than-others compare upward : Choice of comparison and comparative evaluation as independent predictors of academic performance , 1999 .

[63]  Lysann Damisch,et al.  Olympic medals as fruits of comparison? Assimilation and contrast in sequential performance judgments. , 2006, Journal of experimental psychology. Applied.

[64]  J. Bargh,et al.  Automaticity of social behavior: direct effects of trait construct and stereotype-activation on action. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[65]  Melvin Manis,et al.  Shifting standards and stereotype-based judgments. , 1994 .

[66]  T. K. Srull,et al.  Handbook of Social Cognition , 1993 .

[67]  L. L. Martin,et al.  Set/reset: use and disuse of concepts in impression formation. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[68]  Eliot R. Smith,et al.  Procedurally mediated social inferences: The case of category accessibility effects , 1987 .

[69]  Thomas E. Nelson,et al.  Stereotypes and Standards of Judgment , 1991 .

[70]  Thomas Mussweiler,et al.  ‘Seek and ye shall find’: antecedents of assimilation and contrast in social comparison , 2001 .

[71]  J. Bargh,et al.  On the Relation between Associative Strength and Automatic Behavior , 2000 .

[72]  T. Ostrom,et al.  9 – Psychological Perspective and Attitude Change1 , 1968 .

[73]  T. Chartrand,et al.  Effects of Priming and Perception on Social Behavior and Goal Pursuit. , 2007 .

[74]  W. S. Rholes,et al.  Category accessibility and impression formation , 1977 .

[75]  T. Mussweiler,et al.  What friends are for! The use of routine standards in social comparison. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[76]  E. Tory Higgins,et al.  Context, categorization, and recall: The “change-of-standard” effect , 1983, Cognitive Psychology.

[77]  Charles Stangor,et al.  A "change-of-standard" perspective on the relations among context, judgment, and memory. , 1988 .

[78]  J. A. Hardyck,et al.  Consistency, relevance, and resistance to change , 1966 .

[79]  Evidence for egocentric comparison in social judgment , 1996 .