Priming Behavior: A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Behavioral and Nonbehavioral Primes on Overt Behavioral Outcomes

Past meta-analyses of the effects of priming on overt behavior have not examined whether the effects and processes of priming behavioral or nonbehavioral concepts (e.g., priming action through the word go and priming religion through the word church) differ, even though these possibilities are important to our understanding of concept accessibility and behavior. Hence, we meta-analyzed 351 studies (224 reports and 862 effect sizes) involving incidental presentation of behavioral or nonbehavioral primes, a neutral control group, and at least one behavioral outcome. Our random-effects analyses, which used the correlated and hierarchical effects model with robust variance estimation (Pustejovsky & Tipton, 2021; Tanner-Smith et al., 2016), revealed a moderate priming effect (d = 0.37) that remained stable across behavioral and nonbehavioral primes and across different methodological procedures and adjustments for possible inclusion/publication biases (e.g., sensitivity analyses from Mathur & VanderWeele, 2020; sensitivity analyses from Vevea & Woods, 2005). Although the findings suggest that associative processes explain both the effects of behavioral and nonbehavioral primes, lowering the value of a behavior weakened the effect only when the primes were behavioral. These findings support the possibility that even though both types of primes activate associations that promote behavior, behavioral (vs. nonbehavioral) primes may provide a greater opportunity for goals to control the effect of the primes.

Automated summary

This study conducted a meta-analysis of 351 studies and found that there was no difference in the effects of priming behavioral and nonbehavioral concepts, suggesting that associative processes explain the effects of both types of primes.