Influences of "self" on priming effects

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by candidate): This research investigates how self-awareness moderates the effects of non-conscious primes. Non-conscious primes are presented below the participant's reportable awareness (subliminal), or are primes that the participant does not know are related to the subsequent task (implicit). Recent findings reveal that individuals who are high, as opposed to low, in private self-consciousness (an individual difference in self awareness) display greater sensitivity to non-conscious primes. This is a surprising finding because paying more attention to "self' would seem to lead to the prime influencing self less. The specific focus of this application is to expand this funding to manipulations of self-awareness and to test why individuals who are high in self-awareness show increased sensitivity to the effects of non-conscious priming. Both implicit and subliminal primes are used to activate automatic goal pursuit. Analyses focus on the use of various self-awareness manipulations: presence/absence of a self-awareness mirror manipulation (Study 1), self-knowledge accessibility (Study 2), subliminal self name presentation (Study 3), and self-referent processing (Study 4). The effects of these various self-awareness manipulations on priming are compared to the demonstrated effects of private self-consciousness on priming. Self-awareness is hypothesized to moderate the effects of implicit and subliminal primes as a consequence of the self-relevant processing of information.