5 Examples of How Priming Influences Behaviour

A hand holding the strings of a marionette figure, white on violet

Before we get into the story, I want you to do a small task. I will give you the first and last letter of a word. You should guess the word. Complete this word while I go an grab some food.

Here is the word — S _ _ p

Did you say it is soup? Ok, what if I go and take a shower? What word will it be now? S _ _ p

Did you say soap this time?

This is called priming. When you are exposed to a “stimulus” — a word, image or sound — it will influence how you respond to a related “stimulus”.

Priming happens only when particular associations are activated before you do something. For example, if you show a person the word doctor he will be faster to recognise the word nurse than showing a different word. Why? Because these words are closely associated and our brain connects them faster.

The misconception — you know when you are being influenced and how it’s affecting your behaviour.

The truth — you are unaware of how the ideas formed in your subconscious influence your behaviour.

Every interaction with an experience or physical object and every perception, sets a chain of ideas in your head. It doesn’t matter if you notice them consciously or not. For example, if I say “pencil”, you will think about pens. If I say “blackboards”, it will make you think about classrooms. Or if I say “financial report”, you may make you think about accountin or finance work. These things happen to you all the time, even though you are unaware of them. You form conceptions in your head all the time.

Every physical object you encounter triggers an association. You construct reality from minute to minute with memories and emotions. Together they form a consciousness that exists only for you — David McRaney, “You are not so smart”

How smell can influence your behaviour

In 2005, Hank Arts from the University of Utrecht conducted a test on his students. He asked two groups to fill in some questionnaires, and as a reward, people would get a cookie. One group sat in a room that smelled of cleaning products, while the other room smelled nothing. The group primed by the smell of cleaning products were three times more likely to clean after themselves when they finished, then the other one.

Grocery stores noticed a similar effect when they discovered that the smell of freshly baked bread increases sales. The smell of “freshly baked” motivates people to buy more food.

Using images to improve performance

Similarly, in a study by Ron Friedman, where people were merely shown but not allowed to drink sports beverages or bottled water were more likely to endure longer and persist in physical training. Priming works best when your brain is on autopilot. When you are not trying consciously to make sense of what is happening around.

Similarly adding “bio” or “all-natural” to your product primes people into getting thoughts of nature or farms.

What you read will influence how you behave

In a series of studies published in 1996 by John Bargh, he tried to prove that what you read, will control the way you act. He asked students from the NY University to unscramble thirty five-word sentences. He told students, in three different groups, that he was interested in their language skills. The reality was different.

In one group, he asked students to unscramble sentences with words that reflected aggression. Words such as “disturb”, “abruptly” and “pushy”. Another group unscrambled words such as “courteous”, “polite” and “behaved”. The third group was a control one and used words such as “gleefully”, “prepares” and “exercising”.

After the students completed the task, they were asked to hand in the papers and come and take the second assignment. But this was the assignment itself — go and pick the second task after you completed the first one. When each student approached, the researcher was talking to someone else, ignoring the student who was waiting. This way, they wanted to see how patient everyone is before interrupting the conversation. As a result:

The “polite words” group waited on average 9.3 minutes;
The neutral group waited 8.7 minutes;
The “rude/aggressive words” group waited 5.4 minutes;

More than 80% of the polite group participants waited 10 minutes in line. And only 35% of the “rude” group chose to remain. After the research was done, students couldn’t explain why they waited so much.

Some psychologists have argued that priming can have surprising effects on our behaviour: that seeing an image of money can affect our political views. Reading words associated with the elderly can make people move more slowly — Psychology Today

In another experiment by John Bargh, he had participants to unscramble words linked to the elderly. These words included “retired”, “wrinkled”, “old”, “slow”, and others. He then tracked the time it took students to get from the room of experiment to the elevator and compared it with how much it took them to arrive before the experiment. It took them on average a couple of seconds more.

This example is similar to the previous experiment, where people reading “rude” words were less motivated to wait. Bargh then experimented again, and then one more time with a control group to make sure that the results are correct. The results were similar — it took them longer to get to their destination.

Music may influence taste

In a study, Adrian North found that music may change the taste of a wine. Participants described the taste of wines they drank differently, depending on what type of music was being played. For the study, they chose four songs which corresponded to different emotions: Carmina Burana (powerful and heavy), Waltz of the Flowers (subtle and refined), Just Can’t Get Enough by Nouvelle Vague (zingy and refreshing), and Slow Breakdown by Michael Brook (mellow and soft).

Music motivates specific thoughts, and it makes us more likely to use these thoughts when asked to think or act subsequently.

Four groups of participants drank the same wine but with one of those songs played in the background.

People who heard Carmina Burana were more likely to describe the wine as powerful and heavy.
Those who heard Waltz of the Flowers were more likely to describe it as subtle and refined, and so on.

And other groups corresponding to other two songs. This is an example of audio priming which influences and motivates your preference towards a certain product.

You are unaware of how aware you are — David McRaney

Your brain hates uncertainty

And is willing to take shortcuts to remove it from any situation. If there is nothing else to use or understand, your brain will use what’s available. When there are no patterns to use, your brain creates one.

In the examples from above, there was nothing else for the brain to use. What should it do with the images of beverages or with the smell of pain? It didn’t know, and it took a shortcut. But the conscious mind didn’t notice that. So when you ask people if something is good or bad, it might not be the most reliable answer. Because they don’t know it either. And the answer you will get from themmay not be the most reliable one. Why? Because their brain took a shortcut.

You can use priming to improve the mood of your guests with some pleasant scents or music. You can improve the perceived image of yourself by wearing a nice suit. You can bring a shopping list with yourself next time, and you are less likely to fill your cart with useless products, or that extra chocolate. If you neglect your personal working space and allow clutter to creep in, then it might be a motivation for your brain to neglect and other stuff. Priming is a great tool to nudge users into better behaviour. Or worse.

Conitnue reading:

How to Influence Choice Through Default Options — Choice architecture and how to design better defaultsuxplanet.org

10 Powerful User Nudges Illustrated — A quick intro into the world of human psychologyuxplanet.org