a meta-analysis of priming effects on impression formation supporting a general model of...

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Personality and Social Psychology

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2004 8: 2Pers Soc Psychol RevJamie Decoster and Heather M. Claypool

BiasesA Meta-Analysis of Priming Effects on Impression Formation Supporting a General Model of Informational

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PersonalilN1and Social Psychology Reviews2004, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2 -27

Copyright C 2004 byLawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

A Meta-Analysis of Priming Effects on Impression FormationSupporting a General Model of Informational Biases

Jamie DeCosterDepartment of Social Psychology

Free University Amsterdam

Heather M. ClaypoolDepairtment of P.s ychology

Un iv'ersity of Califbrnia, Santa Barbara

Primming researc hers have long investigated how providing information about traits inone context can influence the impressions people Jorm of social targets in anotherThe literature has demonstrated that this can have 3 different effects: Sometime~sprimnes become incorporated in the impression ofthe target (assimilation), sometimesthey are used as standards ofcomparison (anchoring), and sometimes they cause peo-I)le to consciously alter their judgments (correction). In this article, we presentmeta-analyses of these 3 effects. The mean effect size was significant in each case,

such that assimilation resulted in impressions biased toward the primes, whereas an-

choring and correction resulted in impressions biased away from the primes. Addi-tionally, moderator analyses uncovered a number of variables that influence thestrength ofthese effects, such as applicability, processing capacity, and the type of re-

sponse measure. Based on these results, we propose a general model ofhow irrelevantinformation can biasjudgments, detailing when and why assimilation and contrast efJfects result from default and corrective processes.

What if we told you that we discovered a new proce-dure that could reliably control the way you think?That we knew how to induce you to form positive ornegative impressions of a target person at our whim?And that all of this could be accomplished without youknowing it? Although these sound like the claims of acarnival hypnotist, social psychologists have been do-ing this very thing since the 1970s. Researchers inves-tigating the effect of primes on impression formationhave demonstrated that mentioning traits in one con-text can reliably change the way that people thinkabout a social target in an entirely different context, of-ten without the awareness of the perceiver.

This article provides a review of studies investigat-ing how trait primes influence impression formation.We start by describing the theories and methods thathave been most influential in this field. We then presenta meta-analysis performed on this literature, discuss-

We thank Chris Agnew, Don Carlston, Greg Francis, Tory Hig-gins, Gun Semin, John Skowronski, and Eliot Smith for commentsmade on earlier versions of this article.

Work on this meta-analysis was supported by grants from theNetherlands Organization for Research (NWO No. 575-12.020) andthe National Institute for Mental Health (No. ROI MH46840).

Requests for reprints should be sent to Jamie DeCoster, Depart-ment ofPsychology, University ofAlabama, 348 Gordon Palmer Hall,Box 870348. Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0348. E-mail: [email protected]

ing both the overall strength of priming effects and howthese are affected by moderating variables. Followingthis, we provide a generalized model describing howirrelevant information can influence judgments. Webase this model on the results of our analyses, as wellas the theoretical work of Schwarz and Bless (1992),Wegener and Petty (1995), and Smith and DeCoster(2000). We end with a discussion of the implications ofour work for future research on priming and other re-lated topics.

Research Investigating Priming Effectson Impressions

Perhaps the best way to begin our discussion of thisfield is with a description of the experimental proce-dures found in a typical trait-priming study. Partici-pants are usually recruited with the understanding thatthey will perform several short, unrelated tasks duringthe experimental session. The first part of the experi-ment is the priming phase, when participants perform atask in which they are exposed to a set of trait-relatedprimes. The method can take many forms, includingmemorization, evaluation, or sometimes the mere per-ception of the primes. Following the priming phase,there may or may not be a distractor phase, depending

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PRIMING AND IMPRESSION FORMATION

on whether the authors wish to impose a delay betweenexposure to the primes and exposure to the object ofimpression. The nature of the distractor task can varygreatly but typically avoids exposing participants totrait-related information. Next participants enter theimpression formation phase, when they read about orobserve a social target. The final part of the experimentis the judgment phase, when participants are asked toprovide trait ratings of a target person. The effect ofpriming on impressions is measured by the extent towhich different conditions of priming lead participantsto provide different trait ratings of the target.

Primes do not always affect impressions in exactlythe same way. In fact, three distinct types of priming ef-

fects are found in the literature on impression forma-

tion. Early researchers demonstrated that primes couldbecome incorporated in people's judgments of targets,biasing their impressions toward the primes (Higgins,Rholes, & Jones, 1977; Srull & Wyer, 1979). This ba-sic priming effect has typically been referred to as as-

similation. Researchers later discovered two condi-tions under which primes will have the opposite effecton impressions. Herr, Sherman, and Fazio (1983) dem-onstrated that extreme primes are used as standards ofcomparison or scale anchors when makingjudgments,causing the target to appear to have less of the primedtrait. Additionally, Martin (1986) demonstrated thatwhen people become aware that primes may have beenassimilated in their impressions, they consciously cor-

rect their impressions to remove the bias. People com-

monly overcorrect, leading to impressions that are bi-ased away from the primes. Although experimentalevidence suggests that the latter two are distinct pro-

cesses (Moskowitz & Skurnik, 1999), anchoring andcorrection effects have been jointly referred to as con-

trast because both result in impressions biased away

from the primes. Wegener and Petty (1995) demon-strated that correction can sometimes lead to assimila-tion, but it has universally led to contrast in thetrait-priming literature. This is likely because people'stheories about the effect of primes (which Wegener &Petty argue guide the direction of corrections) are pre-

dominantly assimilative, making the logical directionof correction toward contrast (Stapel, Koomen, &Zeelenberg, 1998).

Theories Explaining Priming

Assimilation effects are generally believed to occurbecause primes increase the accessibility of relevanttrait concepts. Researchers have therefore proposedseveral models of how primes influence accessibility.

Possibly the most influential of these has been the exci-tation-transfer model (Higgins, Bargh, & Lombardi,1985; Wyer & Carlston, 1979). The basic premise ofthis model is that using mental constructs involves "ex-citing" particular mental representations. For a givenconstruct to be used in a social judgment, the excitationof the corresponding representation must be increaseduntil it reaches a threshold value. After the constructhas been used, the excitation in its representation de-cays over time until it returns to its baseline value. Theaccessibility of a construct in these models is directlydetermined by the excitation held by its representation.Priming effects occur because processing the prime in-creases the excitation of the corresponding representa-tion. This extra excitation makes the construct easier tobring to consciousness, making it more likely to beused in judgments.

As an alternative, Srull and Wyer (1989) proposedthat person memory consists of a set of "storage bins"containing mental constructs. In their model, using a

mental construct requires that you locate its represen-

tation in the appropriate bin and bring it to conscious-ness. Whenever a construct is drawn from a bin andused, the original is left in its current location and a

copy is placed on top of the "stack" of representationsin the bin. Anytime individuals want to perform a so-

cial inference, they look through the stack in the appro-

priate bin for a matching construct, starting with thoseat the top of the stack. Each construct in the stack has a

probability of being retrieved based on how well it fitsthe current situation. If the first construct is not re-

trieved, then the search moves to the next construct inthe stack, and then the next, continuing until one ischosen for the inference. In this model, the accessibil-ity of a construct is a function of how many times it isreferenced in a bin, weighted by the placement of thereferences. Priming effects occur because prior expo-

sure to a construct creates copies at the top of relevantbins, making it easier to access.

Most recently, Smith and DeCoster (1998) ex-

plained accessibility effects using a connectionistmodel. Their model conceives person memory as a setof "nodes" interconnected by weighted "links." Con-cepts are represented by patterns of activation over

these nodes, similar to the way that patterns of bright-ness across the pixels on a computer monitor can beused to represent pictures or words. To bring a particu-lar construct to mind, this model requires that its asso-

ciated representation be instantiated across the nodes.Viewing a stimulus causes the activation of an initialset of nodes. Activation is then allowed to spreadacross the links to other nodes in the network. Theinstantiated pattern, and therefore the concept broughtto mind, is determined partly by the external stimulusand partly by the weights placed on the links. Everytime a pattern is instantiated on the nodes, the weightschange to make it easier to reproduce in the future. In

3

'Throughout the remainder of this article, we equate the concepts'standard of comparison" and "scale anchor." Although there aretheoretical distinctions between the two, they have been difficult todistinguish empirically (Eiser, 1990).

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DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

this model, the accessibility of a construct is deter-mined by the weights on the links. Patterns that areconsistent with the weights are easier to instantiate andtherefore more accessible than those that are inconsis-tent with the weights. Priming effects occur becausethe changes to the network following exposure to theprime make it easier for the network to instantiate thepattern corresponding to the primed construct.

Although these theories have performed well in pre-dicting assimilation effects, they have had little to sayabout anchoring or correction effects. Researchers at-tempting to explain anchoring effects have focused pri-marily on characteristics of the priming stimuli (butsee also Stapel & Koomen, 2001). Schwarz and Bless(1992) proposed an inclusion-exclusion model, statingthat the influence of a prime depends on the ease withwhich it can be incorporated in a target impression. Aprime that can be easily included with the target be-comes assimilated, resulting in an impression biasedtoward the prime. A prime that cannot be included mayinstead be used as a standard of comparison, resultingin an impression that is biased away from the prime.

Researchers attempting to explain correction ef-fects, on the other hand, have focused primarily on themental processing of the primes. In the set-resetmodel, Martin (1986) proposed that people invoke dif-ferent processes to handle primes, depending on howthey are presented. If the primes are presented in a sub-tle fashion, they increase the accessibility of relevanttraits. When a primed perceiver is later called on toform an impression, the heightened accessibilitymakes these traits more likely to be used in judgments.However, if primes are presented in such a way thatpeople are consciously aware of them at the time ofjudgment, perceivers may try to consciously correct fortheir influence. This process, termed "resetting," in-volves ignoring thoughts perceived to be caused by thepriming stimuli in an attempt to generate an unbiasedimpression. Resetting often leads to contrast becausepeople become overzealous in their effort to correct forthe primes. While trying to remove the influence of theprime, people may also inadvertently remove target in-formation that would have influenced their judgmenteven in the absence of the prime. This causes their im-pression to be based on information biased against theprimed trait.

Major Methodological Variations

Although experimental manipulations that alter-nately lead to assimilation, anchoring, and correctionhave certainly had the strongest influence on priming ef-fects, there have, of course, been other methodologicalvariations. Most of these differences do not change thegeneral character ofthe experiments, although they mayinfluence the effect ofpriming on impression formation.

Here we present some of the most important factors thathave emerged in the literature on trait priming.

Use of supraliminal versus subliminal primes.By definition, priming effects occur when a trait isactivated in one context but influences the impressionof a target in a different context. In their attempts toexamine these effects, researchers have developedtwo basic ways to dissociate the primes from the tar-get. In the first, used originally by Higgins et al.(1977), research participants are exposed to traitprimes in an initial task. Then, in an ostensibly unre-lated part of the experiment, the participants areasked to provide their impression of a person or be-havior. This method is known as "supraliminal prim-ing" because participants are made consciously awareof the primes, although not of the link between theprimed construct and the object of impression. Thedissociation of the primes and the target relies on thefact that participants believe that the priming and im-pression tasks are unrelated, so researchers employ-ing this methodology often check to see if partici-pants explicitly link the two together.

In the second method, introduced by Bargh andPietromonaco (1982), research participants are first ex-posed to trait primes below the threshold of awareness.This is typically accomplished by having participantsperform a task while looking at a tachistoscope or acomputer monitor. Words related to the trait are thendisplayed on the screen for very short periods oftime-on the order of milliseconds. These primes areoften masked (meaning that a sequence of nonsensecharacters is displayed in the same place immediatelyfollowing the prime) or presented in the peripheral ar-eas of vision to make them more difficult to explicitlyrecognize. Participants are then asked to form an im-pression of a target as in supraliminal priming. Thismethod is known as "subliminal priming" because par-ticipants never consciously see the primes. The disso-ciation of the primes and the target relies on the factthat participants are unable to consciously recognizethe primes, so researchers often check that their pre-sentation of the primes is truly beneath awareness.

Type of comparison. Researchers have usedtwo different designs to measure the strength of prim-ing effects on impression formation. In the first design,one group of research participants receives primes re-lated to a single trait, whereas another group receives asmaller number or no primes related to that trait. Bothgroups are then asked to form an impression of a target.A comparison is then made of the extent to which thetwo groups include the critical trait in their impression.We term this a "unipolar" design because all of theprimes used in the study are related to a single trait. Forexample, in Bargh and Pietromonaco (1982), onegroup of participants was presented with 80 primes re-




lated to the trait "hostile" whereas another group waspresented with words with no trait implications. Theeffect of priming in this case is defined as the extent towhich participants in the first group were more likelyto rate a target person as hostile.

In the second design, half of the participants are ex-posed to a set of primes related to one trait whereas theother half are exposed to an equal number of primes re-lated to a different trait. The participants are all thenasked to form an impression of a target that can be in-terpreted in terms of either of the traits. Most of thetime, one of the traits has a positive connotation and theother has a negative connotation. In this design, the re-searcher measures the effect of priming by determiningthe extent to which the participants' interpretations areconsistent with the trait with which they were primed.We refer to this as a "bipolar" design because primesused in the study are typically related to two descrip-tively similar but evaluatively opposite traits. Higginset al. (1977) used such a design. In their experiment,participants were first exposed to primes related to ei-ther the trait "adventurous" or the trait "reckless." In anostensibly unrelated task, they were then asked to forman impression of an individual who regularly per-formed a number of high-risk activities. In this case,the effect of priming was defined as the difference be-tween the groups on how positively they evaluated thetarget. Larger differences indicate that impressions hadbeen more affected by the primes.

Our distinction between unipolar and bipolar de-signs is similar to the distinction between "ambiguous"and "vague" targets made by Higgins and Brendl(1995). In their terms, a target is ambiguous when itcan be interpreted in terms of multiple constructs. Anoften-used example is Higgins et al.'s (1977) "Don-ald," whose high-risk behaviors can be either seen asadventurous or reckless. This type of target is com-monly used in bipolar designs. A target is vague, on theother hand, when it cannot be readily interpreted interms of any available construct. Such targets are typi-cally constructed such that the behaviors are moder-ately related to just one trait. The most common exam-ple is Srull and Wyer's (1979) "Donald," whosebehaviors are moderately hostile. This type of target iscommonly used in studies with unipolar designs.

Prime valence. Researchers using unipolar de-signs have varied the valence of the primed trait. Thereis reason to suspect that this might impact the strengthof priming. Researchers have long known that peopledo not always process positive and negative informa-tion in the same way. Studies have shown that, depend-ing on the situation, either positive or negative infor-mation can be more influential in social judgments.Skowronski and Carlston (1989) resolved these seem-ingly contradictory results by claiming that the effectof valence depends on the type ofjudgment that people

are trying to make. According to their theory, negativeinformation has a stronger effect on morality or charac-ter judgments, whereas positive information has astronger effect on ability judgments. For example, con-sider a person taking a difficult math test. Someonewho is not intelligent would always do poorly on suchan exam. Someone who is extremely bright could doquite well, but might not under all circumstances (e.g.,when having an "off' day). Good performance on theexam is therefore more diagnostic of intelligence thanpoor performance, because even intelligent people canoccasionally be expected to perform poorly. Now con-sider an immoral act, like stealing your friend's wallet.A moral person would never perform such a behavior,but an immoral person might, at least under some cir-cumstances. Performing a negative behavior is there-fore more diagnostic of the morality of the actor thanperforming a positive behavior, because immoral peo-ple will sometimes refrain from performing negativebehaviors. Following from this logic, we suspect thatdiagnostic primes might have stronger effects on im-pressions than nondiagnostic primes. We thereforepredict that positive primes would have the greatest im-pact on judgments related to ability, whereas negativeprimes would have the greatest impact on judgmentsrelated to morality.

Delay between priming and impressionformation. Common sense (as well as all threemodels of accessibility mentioned previously) tells usthat priming effects should decay over time. Otherwisewe would all soon be overwhelmed by a mounting ofpriming effects, preventing us from responding to newinformation. We would therefore expect that the effectof a prime is moderated by the amount of time thatelapses between the priming manipulation and the pre-sentation of the object of impression. Primary researchspecifically conducted to examine this effect hastended to confirm that increases in the delay betweenpriming and impression formation decrease the likeli-hood that the primed trait will be used in the impres-sion (Srull & Wyer, 1980).

Applicability of primes to the target. Applica-bility is defined as the degree of overlap between theprimed construct and the object of impression (Hig-gins, 1996). Early priming studies discovered thatprimes must be at least somewhat applicable for themto affect impressions (Fazio, Powell, & Herr, 1983;Higgins et al., 1977). Once this finding was estab-lished, researchers tended to avoid inapplicable condi-tions because the effect of inapplicability suppressedother effects.

Relation between primed construct and judgedtraits. Most of the experiments in this literaturemeasure how priming a trait affects people's tenden-



DeCOSTER & CtLAYPOOL

cies to use that specific trait when judging a target.However, some researchers have investigated howpriming affects the use of other traits that are only re-lated to the primed construct in terms of valence. Forexample, an experimenter might measure judgments ofkindness after priming individuals with words relatedto honesty. A primed construct is said to have "descrip-tive" implications for a judgment if the primed andjudged traits have approximately the same meaning.When the judged trait has a different semantic mean-ing, the primes are said to only have "evaluative" im-plications. Primary research has most often shown thatprimes with descriptive implications for the judgmentproduce stronger effects than primes possessing onlyevaluative implications (Devine, 1989; Srull & Wyer,1980).

A Meta-Analysis of Priming Effects onImpression Formation

Issues in Meta-Analyzing the PrimingLiterature

Before presenting the results of our analyses, wefirst discuss a few aspects of our meta-analytic proce-dure. There are many characteristics of the priming lit-erature that made meta-analyzing this area a challeng-ing exercise. Here we discuss the nature of these issuesand explain how we chose to deal with them.

Dependent observations in moderator analy-ses. Unlike most literatures subjected to ameta-analysis, research investigating the effect ofprimes on impression formation has taken place exclu-sively in an experimental setting. This means that vari-ables moderating the effect are often manipulatedwithin a study. A single publication could thereforeeasily report effects that fall into several different con-ditions covered by this analysis. To make full use ofthis information, a meta-analyst would be required tocalculate multiple effect sizes from each study. How-ever, this creates a problem in analysis because thestandard procedures used in meta-analysis assume thatall of the effect sizes are independent. Although effectsdrawn from the same study typically did not involvethe same participants, it is still likely that they are atleast somewhat dependent because of the similarity ofthe setting, procedures, and researcher expectations(Glass, McGaw, & Smith, 1981, chapter 6; Rosenthal& Rubin, 1986).

To minimize the presence of dependent observa-tions in our data sets while still taking advantage of thevariability within studies, each of our moderator analy-ses is based on a different set of effect sizes. For a givenmoderator analysis, each study contributed an effectsize for each level of the moderator that was present in

the study. For example, if a study reported priming ef-fects within a 3 (delay) x 2 (applicability) design, itwould contribute three effects to the data set used to an-alyze delay, two effects to the data set used to analyzeapplicability, and a single effect to the data sets used toexamine other moderators. Using this method, sug-gested by Cooper (1989), we only include dependentobservations in our analyses when they are specificallyrelated to the moderator being analyzed. If we were touse the same sample of effects for all of our analyses,we would always need to include an effect for each cellof the study design, which would introduce consider-ably more dependence. Note, however, that using thismethod means that the number of effects and the totalvariability present in different analyses will be differ-ent, even though we base all our analyses on the sameset of studies.

In search of... an error term.2 We chose tobase our meta-analysis on 6, the standard effect sizeused to examine differences between groups. 6 is de-fined as the difference between the experimental andcontrol groups divided by the pooled standard devia-tion of these two groups. This can make calculationsdifficult at times because in analysis of variance, vari-ability associated with factors in the model is automati-cally removed from the error terms used to calculatetest statistics. This means that an estimate of the pooledstandard deviation for this calculation cannot be di-rectly drawn from the error terms in an analysis of vari-ance table. Meta-analytic procedures dictate that if ad-ditional factors are crossed with the comparison ofinterest, the variability associated with those factorsand their interactions should be reconstituted into theerror term prior to calculating the standard deviation.The basic goal is to make the effect size similar to at-test between the experimental and control groups.One therefore wants the standard deviation in the cal-culation to reflect all of the variability observed withinthese groups, even if it is associated with other inde-pendent variables in the design.

This issue, however, becomes more complicatedwhen working with an experimental literature. Thepurpose of reconstituting variance is to make the mea-sure of the standard deviation better reflect the vari-ability naturally contained within the two groups of thecontrast. Additional manipulated factors, however,typically add variability not normally present, so itwould be inappropriate to reconstitute their effects intothe error term. In this meta-analysis, we therefore de-cided to reconstitute only individual difference factors,and only when they were not used to induce differenttypes of priming effects (as in Martin, Seta, & Crelia,1990).

2We thank Alice Eagly, Blair Johnson, Janet Swim, and DuaneWegener for providing their perspectives on this issue.




Separation of assimilation, anchoring, and cor-rection effects. We decided that it was inappropriateto include all assimilation, anchoring, and correction ef-fects in a single analysis. First, assimilation effects aretypically opposite in direction to anchoring and correc-tion effects. A homogeneity analysis on the type of ef-fect shows that the three literatures are highly distinct,Qb(2) = 303.1372, p < .0001. A moderator that has thesimple effect of increasing the strength of primingacross all three types might not show an overall main ef-fect because its influence on assimilation effects wouldcounteract its influence on anchoring and correction ef-fects. This compromises the interpretability of modera-tor analyses performed on a sample including all threetypes of effects. Second, there is a substantial amount ofevidence indicating that these effects may be the resultof different mental processes (Herr et al., 1983; Martinet al., 1990). We would therefore expect that most ofourmoderators would interact with the type of priming ef-fect. Unfortunately, moderator analyses including suchinteractions would use many more degrees of freedom,drastically reducing the power ofour tests. For these rea-sons, we performed separate moderator analyses for as-similation, anchoring, and correction effects (with thesingle exception of processing capacity, which com-bined elements ofthe assimilation and correction litera-tures for theoretical reasons).

The decision to label an effect as caused by assimila-tion, anchoring, or correction was based on the theoreti-cal rationale provided in the article from which it wasdrawn. Priming researchers typically theorized that cor-rection would take place when the priming procedurewas obvious (e.g., Martin, 1986) or when participantswere somehow reminded of the priming materials orprocedure before rendering theirjudgments ofthe target(e.g., Strack, Schwarz, Bless, Kfibler, & Wanke, 1993).Both of these features increase the likelihood thatperceivers notice the potential impact of the prime ontheirjudgments, prompting them to correct for the bias.Researchers typically hypothesized that anchoring ef-fects would occur when priming stimuli were extreme(Herr et al., 1983) or specific (Stapel & Koomen, 1996).Both of these features make it difficult to include theprimed construct in the representation of the target,leading the perceiver to use it as a standard of compari-son. Assimilation effects were hypothesized to occur inthe absence ofthe conditions necessary for anchoring orcorrection: when the priming procedure was subtle,when participants were not reminded of the primingprocedure or materials, when the priming stimuli weremoderate, and when the priming materials were broadlydefined. In addition, assimilation was hypothesized tooccur for participants in conditions that would normallylead to correction when their ability to correct was dis-rupted by capacity limitations (Martin et al., 1990).

Although it might be more desirable to establish ob-jective coding definitions for assimilation, anchoring,

and correction effects, many of the theoretical criteriajust described are highly subjective. It is unclear ex-actly how "extreme" a prime must be for it to create an-choring rather than assimilation effects, what consti-tutes a sufficient load to prevent the performance ofcorrection through awareness, how specific a primemust be to be excluded from a target, or how blatant thepriming procedure must be for perceivers to notice itspotential impact on their judgments. Because deter-mining the type of priming effect requires some sort ofsubjective decision, we felt that basing this on the theo-retical rationale of the authors instead of our own judg-ment was less likely to introduce confirmation biasesin our results. However, it is important to note that likeany meta-analysis, the validity of our findings can beno greater than the validity of the original research. Ifthe authors generated their theoretical rationales afterthey already knew the results, their results could be af-fected by post hoc biases. In this case, our mean effectsizes would be inflated because authors would tend togenerate theories consistent with the pattern of resultsthey obtained.

Method

Sample of studies. To be included in themeta-analysis, an experiment must have first primedparticipants and then asked for a judgment of a socialstimulus. The primes must have been related to specifictraits or a stereotype with specific trait implications. Theprimes could also not be explicitly linked to the object ofimpression at the time of presentation because this rep-resents overt labeling rather than priming. Participantscould not be simultaneously primed with constructs ofopposite valence (as in Higgins et al., 1985) because wewould be unable to determine the influence ofeach indi-vidual construct on impressions. The object of thejudg-ment had to be both social and unfamiliar.3 The depend-ent variable had to reflect a trait judgment, although itmay have been measured as a general evaluation.

To obtain our sample, we conducted com-puter-based literature searches pairing the term "im-pression formation" with either the term "implicitmemory" or variants of the terms "priming" or "ac-cessibility." We examined Psychological Abstracts(January 1984-June 1998), PsycLit Books (January1987-June 1998), PsycLit. Journals (January1974-June 1998), Educational Resources InformationCenter (January 1966-June 1998), and DissertationAbstracts International (1966-1998). The Social Sci-ences Citation Index was also searched for articlesreferencing Higgins et al. (1977), Srull and Wyer

3Studies in our analysis used behaviors, unfamiliar people, andonce (Herr et al., 1983) an unfamiliar animal. The last study primedthe "trait" ferocity and had participants rate the ferocity of an un-known animal.



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

(1979), and Bargh and Pietromonaco (1982). threeseminal studies investigating the role of priming on

person impressions. We additionally wrote the firstauthor of each article included in our analysis askingfor any additional published or unpublished researchrelated to priming. These searches together generatedmore than 900 distinct matches, and each was exam-

ined for relevance to the defined topic. Forty-sevenarticles from this search met the inclusion criteriamentioned previously.

Coding moderating variables. We performedmoderator analyses of variables related to the studysetting; variables related to the theoretical issues thathave surfaced in the field; variables related toatheoretical methodological variations; and variablesrelated to study quality. Detailed descriptions of eachvariable are provided in the Moderator Analysis sec-

tion. We independently coded all of the moderatingvariables, obtaining reliabilities for the initial codesranging from 0.714 to 1.00 with a median of 0.914.Differences were resolved through discussion.

Calculating effect sizes. Our analyses were

based on d, which is an unbiased estimate of the popu-lation effect size 6. 6 is defined as the standardized dif-ference between experimental and control groups. Wedefined the experimental and control groups such thatmore positive values indicated greater assimilation,whereas more negative values indicated greater con-

trast. Specifically, in studies with a unipolar design, theexperimental group was defined as the condition withthe strongest priming manipulation and the controlgroup as the condition with the weakest. In studies witha bipolar design, we defined the groups such that im-pressions consistent with the primed trait generatedpositive effects, whereas impressions consistent withthe unprimed trait generated negative effects. Effectsizes were computed with the aid of DSTAT (Johnson,1989), a computer program designed for meta-analyticcalculations.

There are often multiple ways that an effect size canbe calculated from a given study. We therefore estab-lished a hierarchy of calculation methods organized byhow directly the information used in the calculation re-

lated to the effect size. When multiple calculationmethods were available, we always chose the methodmost directly related to the means and standard devia-tion of the effect of interest (see DeCoster, 2002, p. 29).The two authors independently computed all effectsizes to ensure calculation accuracy.

Descriptive Analyses

Distribution of effects. The first step in our anal-ysis was to examine the distributions for outliers. Ap-pendix A contains the main effects for assimilation. We

8

observed two outliers, one located atd= -0.35 14 and theother at d = 5.6557. The negative value came fromBargh, Lombardi, and Higgins (1988), a study designedto examine the effect of chronic accessibility on prim-ing. In this study, the investigators selected participantsthat were chronically accessible either with regard to so-cial tendencies (being outgoing or not) or consideration.They then exposed those participants with chronicallyaccessible social tendency constructs to primes relatedto consideration, and those with chronically accessibleconsideration constructs to primes related to social ten-dency. Participants then formed an impression of a tar-get that could be interpreted as either outgoing or incon-siderate. Bargh et al. found that the prime initiallyguided impressions but that the chronically accessibleconstruct became more influential over time. To investi-gate their hypotheses, the researchers purposefully pitthe chronic accessibility of one trait against the tempo-rarily (primed) accessibility ofanother. Though this wasperfectly appropriate to answer their research question,the study is unfit for inclusion in our meta-analysis be-cause they confounded chronic accessibility with thepriming manipulation.

The extreme positive effect actually comes fromSrull and Wyer (1979), one of the seminal studies in thefield. After carefully examining their report, we havereason to believe that these researchers may have per-formed a statistical error in their analyses. First, thestandard deviations of participants' impressions thatmay be derived from their statistics are 0.5045 and0.4565 (for Experiments 1 and 2, respectively). Theseare unusually small, considering they used an 11-pointrating scale as their dependent measure. Additionally,the results reported in this study are very different fromthose of Srull and Wyer (1980), who used a similarmethodology, design, and participant population. Forexample, the standard deviations of participants' im-pressions (again measured on an 11-point scale) thatmay be calculated from the statistics in this article are3.148 and 3.3196. Additionally, the overall effect sizefor Srull and Wyer (1980) is 0.1382, which is muchsmaller than the calculated effect size for Srull andWyer (1979). Although we loathe excluding such animportant study from this analysis, we believe thatthere is sufficient evidence to question the validity ofSrull and Wyer's (1979) findings. All analyses of as-similation were therefore calculated without the inclu-sion of either the effects from Bargh et al. (1988) orSrull and Wyer (1979).

The main effects for anchoring and correction can befound in Appendix B and Appendix C, respectively. Wedid not observe outliers in either ofthese distributions.

Summary characteristics. Once the final dataset was established, we analyzed the distribution of allthree types of effects. The summary characteristics forassimilation, anchoring, and correction effects are pre-




Table 1. Summarv Characteristics

Anchoring CorrectionAssimilation Contrast Contrast

Number of main effects 45 11 9Number of research participants 4794 1169 870Mean weighted d 0.3541 -0.5108 -0.684095% confidence interval for d (0.2959, 0.4123) (-0.6280, -0.3936) (-0.8221, -0.5459)Range of d (-0.0354, 1.1869) (-1.2836, -0.0598) (-1.2704, -0.1020)Heterogeneity Qw 81.0663 (p = .0006) 29.1374 (p = .0012) 33.1838 (p <.0001)Median publication year 1991 1996 1993

sented in Table 1. The mean d for assimilation is0.3541, which, according to Cohen (1992), is a small tomedium effect. This indicates that research partici-pants in assimilation conditions do appear to incorpo-rate primes in their impressions. For ease in interpret-ing this effect size, consider the distributions of theimpressions formed by primed and unprimed individu-als on a scale where larger values reflect impressionsconsistent with the prime. With an effect of this size,we would expect that the mean value of the primedgroup would be equal to the 63rd percentile of theunprimed group (U3, from Cohen, 1977).

The mean d for anchoring is -0.5108. This is a me-dium-sized effect, indicating that participants avoidedusing primed constructs in their impressions when theprimes were used as standards of comparison. Con-sider the distributions of the impressions formed byprimed and unprimed individuals (where the primedindividuals are under an anchoring manipulation) on ascale where larger values reflect impressions consis-tent with the prime. With an effect of this size, wewould expect that the mean value of the primed groupwould only be equal to the 31st percentile of theunprimed group (U3, from Cohen, 1977).

The mean d for correction is -0.6840. This is a me-dium to large effect, indicating that participantsavoided using primed constructs in their impressionsafter correction. Consider the distributions of the im-pressions formed by primed and unprimed individuals(where the primed individuals are under a correctionmanipulation) on a scale where larger values reflectimpressions consistent with the prime. With an effectof this size, we would expect that the mean value of theprimed group would only be equal to the 25th percen-tile of the unprimed group (U3, from Cohen, 1977).

Moderator Analyses

The values of Qw presented in Table 1 indicate that as-similation, anchoring, and correction effects are all sta-tistically heterogeneous. This indicates the need to ex-plain the variability through the examination ofmoderating variables. For each moderator, we providethe descriptive statistics within each of its levels for as-similation, anchoring, and correction effects, as well as

a test of the moderator's ability to account for variabil-ity in each sample. For categorical moderators, wecalculated Qb, a measure of the variability betweenfactor levels roughly analogous to the regression sumof squares in regression analysis. Qb follows achi-square distribution with degrees of freedom equalto the number of levels present in the moderator minusone. For continuous moderators, we present a test ofthe slope parameter bI, based on a weighted regressionanalysis. As mentioned previously, separate analyseswere performed for assimilation, anchoring, and cor-rection effects, but we present the results simulta-neously to make discussion of each moderator's influ-ence easier.

Year of publication. Publication year was codedas a continuous variable, so we performed a weightedregression to test for a linear effect of publication yearon effect sizes. In Table 2, we report both the estimateand standard error of the slope coefficients. Publicationyear is not a significant moderator of assimilation orcorrection effects, indicating that both are approxi-mately consistent over time. For anchoring effects,year of publication is a significant moderator, indicat-ing that more recently published anchoring effectswere of a smaller magnitude.

Participant nationality. For this moderator wegenerated two categories. The majority of studies wereconducted in North America (specifically, the UnitedStates and Canada), so we gave these their own cate-gory. We combined the remaining studies to form oursecond category. The results of the moderator analysesfor nationality appear in Table 3.

Nationality appears to have a significant influenceon assimilation, anchoring, and, correction effects. In

Table 2. Moderator Analyses.for Year ofPublication


Regression coefficient 0.003184 -0.02275 -0.03169b]

Standard error of b1 0.005554 0.01137 0.01939Testofb1 .0 c=0.57 z=-2.00 z=-1.63

(p= .5686) (p= .0454) (p = .1023)



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

Table 3. Moderator Anahlscvs ftir NationalityAssimilation Anchoring Contrast Correction Contrast

United States/CanadaNumber of effects 36 5 6

Number of participants 3750 471 523Mean weighted d 0.2882 -0.2579 -0.4461

OtherNumber of effects 10 7 3Number of participants 1043 698 347Mean weighted d 0.5997 -0.6906 -1.0873

Test Qb[ll = 18.9343 Qb[l] = 12.7172 Qb[1] = 19.3306(p<.0001) (p=.0004) (p<.000I)

each case, effect sizes are larger in countries outside ipant age. We therefore created three age categories:the United States and Canada. We had no a priori ex- younger than college-age, college-age, and older thanpectation that nationality would moderate priming ef- college-age. The results of the moderator analyses forfects; moreover, there is little reason to believe that the participant age appear in Table 5.underlying psychological principles responsible for as- Participant age does not moderate assimilation ef-similation, anchoring, or correction effects would dif- fects but does appear to influence anchoring and cor-fer cross-culturally. We therefore suspect that these ef- rection effects. Younger participants show both greaterfects simply reflect idiosyncratic differences between anchoring and correction effects than college-age par-U.S./Canadian labs and those elsewhere. ticipants. Although caution should be taken when in-

terpreting these findings (because the influence on an-

Participant sex. We created four categories to choring is marginal, and the first cell for correction iscode participant sex. Some studies used only male or based on only one study), they may indicate that peopleonly female participants. Some reported the presence become more sophisticated in dealing with primes as

ofboth male and female participants but analyzed them they age. Older participants may be more resistant totogether. Others made no reference to the makeup of the influence of primes, explaining the effect of age ontheir sample. The results of the moderator analyses for anchoring and the nonsignificant trend observed in as-participant sex appear in Table 4. There are no signifi- similation. Older participants may also be more accu-

cant sex differences in the magnitudes of assimilation, rate judges of a prime's influence on impressions, soanchoring, or correction effects. that they have a smaller tendency to overcorrect for a

prime's influence.

Participant age. Like most fields of experimen-tal psychology, the majority of priming studies have Delay. For the analysis of delay, we approxi-been conducted using college-age participants. We de- mated the number of minutes between the priming andcided to use this as a breakpoint in our coding of partic- the impression-formation tasks, including the time

Table 4. Moderator Analyses for Participant Sex

Assimilation Anchoring Contrast Correction Contrast

Only menNumber of effects 2Number of participants 130Mean weighted d 0.1776

Only womenNumber of effects 3 1 2Number of participants 138 100 38Mean weighted d 0.3488 -0.4461 -0.8208

BothNumber of effects 31 9 8Number of participants 3181 986 716Mean weighted d 0.3777 -0.5225 -0.6771

UnreportedNumber of effects 11 1 1

Number of participants 1345 83 116Mean weighted d 0.3113 -0.4531 -0.6622

Test Qb[3] = 2.0356 Qb[2] = 0.2013 Qb[2] = 0.1814(p= .565 1 ) (p= .9043) (p = .9 1 33)




Table 5. Moderator AnalysesJr Participant Age


Younger than college ageNumber of effects 7 6 1Number of participants 528 539 129Mean weighted d 0.4710 -0.6345 -1.5041

College ageNumber of effects 38 8 9Number of participants 3866 630 741Mean weighted d 0.3521 -0.4041 -0.5613

Older than college ageNumber of effects 4Number of participants 319Mean weighted d 0.2534

Test Qb[2] = 2.5264 QblI] = 3.6782 Qb[ I] = 19.5568(p = .2828) (p - .0551) (p <.0001)

spent on the instructions for the impression task. Wethen applied a logarithmic transformation to these val-ues, because the effect of time on mental functions typ-ically follows an exponential curve (Newell &Rosenbloom, 1981). The results of the weighted re-gression analyses predicting effect size from the loga-rithm of the delay appear in Table 6.

Assimilation studies with longer delays producedmarginally smaller effects than studies with shorter de-lays. Delay did not significantly moderate the strengthof either anchoring or correction effects. Although themarginally significant result for assimilation is consis-tent with theories of accessibility, the relatively weakinfluence of delay overall is somewhat surprising. Thisresult may have been caused by a restriction of range.Only one assimilation study (Srull & Wyer, 1980) and

Table 6. Moderator Analyses for Delay


Regression coefficient -0.03805 0.03618 -0.05949bi

Standard error of b1 0.02146 0.0808 0.09726TestofbI #0 z=-1.77 z=0.4478 -0.6117

(p = .0768) (p =.6528) (p= .5418)

no studies of anchoring or correction examined prim-ing effects after a delay greater than 10 min.

Applicability. Applicability refers to the relationbetween the primes and the object of impression (Hig-gins et al., 1977). If the features of the primes over-lapped with the features of the target person, the effectwas coded as applicable. If the features of the primesdid not overlap with the target in any way, the effectwas coded as inapplicable. The results of the modera-tor analyses for applicability appear in Table 7.

Applicability moderates the strength of assimilationeffects. Primes have a greater influence when applica-ble to a target than when they are inapplicable. Nostudies examining anchoring or correction used primesthat were inapplicable to the object of impression, sowe were unable to determine the impact of applicabil-ity on these effects.

Relation between primed and judged traits. Ifparticipants' impressions were measured along thesame trait dimension that was originally primed, theprimes were coded as having descriptive implicationsfor the judgment. Otherwise the primes were coded ashaving evaluative implications for the judgment. Theresults of the moderator analyses for trait relation ap-pear in Table 8.

Table 7. Moderator Analyses for Applicability


ApplicableNumber of effects 46 11 9Number of participants 4465 1169 870Mean weighted d 0.3791 -0.5108 -0.6840

InapplicableNumber of effects 5Number of participants 329Mean weighted d -0.0196

Test Qb[l] = 12.0904 NA NA(p = .0005)



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

The relation between primed and judged traits ap-pears to be a significant moderator of assimilationand anchoring effects, but does not moderate correc-tion effects. For assimilation, stronger effects werefound when the primed construct had descriptive im-plications for the judgment than when it only hadevaluative implications. It is important to note, how-ever, that the assimilation effect on evaluative dimen-sions was not trivial (z = 4.87, p < .05). This suggeststhat when the prime is incorporated in the judgment,it not only affects impressions related to the primedtrait but also "spills over" and influences the repre-sentation more generally. For anchoring, stronger ef-fects were found when the primed construct had de-scriptive implications for the judgment than when itonly had evaluative implications. Anchoring primesthat only had evaluative implications for the judg-ment had no apparent impact on impressions (z =-0.4337, p > .60). For correction effects, there was nodifference between the effects of primes with descrip-tive and evaluative implications.

This pattern of results is consistent with Schwarzand Bless's (1992) theorizing about the role of "salientdimensions" in comparison-based contrast effects.They argued that

the mere accessibility of an extreme stimulus is un-likely to elicit comparison or anchoring processes, un-less the stimulus brings the relevant dimension ofjudgment to mind.... If the stimulus is thought aboutwith regard to some other dimension, it is unlikely tobe used as a standard or scale anchor. (p. 227)

To the extent that an extreme prime such as "Hitler"brings to mind the relevant dimension of hostility, itshould serve as a standard of comparison on that di-mension. It is therefore logical to suspect that anchor-ing effects would emerge on measures of hostility butnot on descriptively unrelated traits such as "stupid."

Unlike assimilation or anchoring, we observed no in-fluence of the relation between primed andjudged traitson correction effects. This is reasonable when we con-sider that correction must necessarily be mediated byconscious thought. Perceivers' corrections may be ap-

plied broadly in an effort to prevent the prime from influ-encing any of their judgments. Corrections would thenbe equally strong for primes with descriptive andevaluative implications.

Diagnosticity (morality/ability and valence). Wecoded whether the primed trait was related to the target'sabilities (such as intelligence) or the target's moralityand character (such as hostility). The analysis was re-stricted to studies using primes with descriptive impli-cations for the judgment to ensure that the primed andthe rated traits were either both related to ability or bothrelated to morality. We additionally coded the evaluativenature of the primed trait for those studies that had a uni-polar design. We could not include effects from bipolardesigns in these analyses because those studies use twodifferent sets of primes, typically opposite in valence.Our sample included studies with positive, neutral, andnegative primes. Based on Skowronski and Carlston's(1989) work, we hypothesized that negative primeswould have a greater impact on morality compared toability judgments, whereas positive primes would havea greater impact on ability than moralityjudgments. Theresults of these analysis can be found in Table 9.We could not perform a direct test of the hypothe-

sized interaction because prime valence and moral-ity/ability were confounded in our analyses due to miss-ing cells. We might, however, make some indirectinferences based on the main effects and a descriptiveknowledge of our sample. For assimilation, we ob-served a significant main effect of morality/ability, indi-cating that morality primes produced stronger effectsthan ability primes. Given that the majority of assimila-tion effects used negative primes, this finding providessome indirect support for our hypothesis that negativemorality primes lead to stronger effects than negativeability primes. In fact, a direct test indicated that studieswith negative morality primes had significantly strongereffects than studies with negative ability primes (z =2.08,p <.05). We unfortunately lack the necessary infor-mation to determine whether positive ability primeslead to stronger effects than positive morality primes.Furthermore, a test of morality/ability could not be per-formed for anchoring or awareness effects.

Table 8. Moderator Analyses for the Relation Between Primed and Judged Traits


DescriptiveNumber of effects 53 15 7Number of participants 4084 895 385Mean weighted d 0.3968 -0.6820 -0.5 100

EvaluativeNumber of effects 43 13 6Number of participants 2416 783 219Mean weighted d 0.1987 -0.0310 -0.4531

Test Qb[I] = 14.5063 Qb[I] = 42.4561 Qb[I] = 0.1090(p < .000I) (p < .0001) (p = .7413)




Table 9. Moderator Analyses for Diagnosticity


Positive ability(No effects)

Positive moralityNumber of effects 6 1Number of participants 283 83 42Mean weighted d 0.4006 -0.4513 -.8594

Neutral ability(No effects)

Neutral moralityNumber of effects 3Number of participants 241Mean weighted d 0.4907

Negative abilityNumber of effects 3Number of participants 233Mean weighted d 0.2531

Negative moralityNumber of effects 12 5Number of participants 583 239Mean weighted d 0.5791 -0.3171

Test of valence Qb[2] = 1.4905 Qb[1] = 0.2705 NA(p = .4746) (p = .6030)

Test of morality/ability Qb[l] = 4.3011 NA NA(p = .0381)

Test of valence x morality/ability NA NA NA

Note: Because this analysis is necessarily limited to descriptive primes, we conducted a separate analysis of valence including both evaluativeand descriptive primes. The moderator analyses for assimilation and anchoring in the larger sample were both still nonsignifcant.

Nature of primes. The primes used in this litera-ture can be placed into four categories: Some studies ex-posed participants to trait words; some required partici-pants to read paragraphs or sentences related to a trait;some used real-world examples of individuals or thingsknown to possess a trait (exemplars); and some were ex-posed to "scrambled behaviors." This last type ofprime,introduced in Srull and Wyer (1979), involved showingparticipants a number of four-word groups. In eachgroup, three of the words represented a behavior with

trait implications (e.g., "break his arm"), whereas thefourth word was irrelevant. The four words were pre-sented in a scrambled order, and participants were askedto underline the three that could be used to form a com-plete sentence. The results ofthe moderator analyses forthe nature of the primes appear in Table 10.

Assimilation and correction effects are moderatedby the nature of the primes. From an accessibility per-spective, it is logical to assume that rich and focusedtrait primes should lead to a greater activation of the

Table 10. Moderator Analyses for the Nature ofPrimes


Trait wordsNumber of effects 19 2Number of participants 1589 63Mean weighted d 0.3261 -0.2881

Trait-related sentence or paragraphNumber of effects 11 4 4Number of participants 827 320 375Mean weighted d 0.5420 -0.6489 -0.5615

ExemplarsNumber of effects 12 9Number of participants 581 489Mean weighted d 0.3162 -0.4224

Scrambled behaviorsNumber of effects 10 3 2Number of participants 1615 360 389Mean weighted d 0.2961 -0.4967 -0.8732

Test Qb[3] = 8.7974 Qb[2] = 2.3917 Qb[2] = 6.8777(p =.0321) (p=.3025) (p =.0321)



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

relevant trait than impoverished and unfocused primes.The moderator analysis revealed that trait-related sen-tences or paragraphs result in the largest assimilationeffects, followed by the other three types of primes.which result in about equally strong effects. A similarbut nonsignificant pattern can be found in anchoringeffects. Trait-related sentences or paragraphs likely en-courage people to process the greatest amount oftrait-relevant information of all the priming types be-cause they are directly related to the trait and provide aconcrete behavioral example. Trait words are stronglyrelated to the trait concept but require little active inter-pretation and do not offer the same richness that a pas-sage offers. Exemplars, by their very nature, possess amultitude of characteristics, only one of which is thetrait of interest. Those characteristics that are not re-lated to the trait of interest might interfere withthoughts of the critical trait. Finally, although scram-bled behaviors and trait-related sentences both have asimilar relation to the primed trait, the nature of the un-scrambling task causes people to focus on the gram-matical structure rather than the semantic interpreta-tion of the behaviors. This may distract participantsfrom the trait implications of the behavior.

For correction effects, we see a somewhat differentpattern. In this case, both trait-related sentences andscrambled behaviors result in strong effects. An impor-tant similarity between these two types of primes isthat they both involve behaviors. We speculate that be-havioral primes may create larger correction-basedcontrast effects because of the spontaneous trait infer-ence process (Winter & Uleman, 1984). Research hasshown that when perceivers read about behaviors per-formed by a target, they spontaneously associate thetarget with traits implied by the behaviors. After view-ing a behavioral prime, perceivers may believe thatthey created part of the bias themselves when they per-formed the trait inference. This could cause them tofeel "responsible" for the bias, providing them withgreater motivation to correct their initial impressions.This explanation is consistent with the findings of Mar-tin et al. (1990), who showed that correction-basedcontrast effects emerged when participants had indi-vidual responsibility for rendering a judgement of atarget, but that assimilation occurred when participantsshared responsibility for rendering the judgment.

The nature of the prime did not moderate anchoringeffects. Extrapolating from the inclusion-exclusionmodel (Schwarz & Bless, 1992), we might have ex-pected that more individualized, "narrow" primes (suchas exemplars) might be less effective for creating assim-ilation or more effective for creating anchoring becauseexemplars have clearly defined boundaries that makethem more difficult to include in the target. Although themoderator analyses failed to show such patterns, this isnot truly evidence against this theory. What matters isthe construct that becomes activated by the primes,

rather than the specific nature of the primes themselves.Stapel and Koomen (1998) demonstrated that individu-alized primes, such as exemplars, can produce assimila-tion effects if they activate a general mental construct,such as a trait or stereotype. The exemplars (and the con-texts under which those exemplars were presented) pro-ducing assimilation effects are therefore likely differentfrom those producing anchoring effects. For example,Herr (1986) was able to control whether exemplars wereassimilated or used as standards of comparison by ma-nipulating their extremity. In this case, we would sus-pect that moderate primes activated a general trait con-struct, whereas extreme primes activated therepresentation of an exemplar.

Priming method. Using the idea of depth of pro-cessing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972), we divided our stud-ies into four groups based on how participants wereasked to process the primes. Some studies presented theprimes visibly but did not have participants work withthem in any way. For example, Stapel and Koomen(1997) included exemplars in participants' instructionsbefore reading about a target person. Some, such as Hig-gins et al. (1977), asked participants to remember theprimes for a recall task to come later. Sometimes theprimes were presented as part ofaprocedural task so thatparticipants primarily worked with the structure of theprimes rather than with their meaning. For example,Srull and Wyer (1980) exposed participants to primes asthey unscrambled words in a sentence. Finally, somemethodologies had participants focus on the semanticcontent of the primes. For example, in one condition,Smith and Branscombe (1988) asked participants to de-termine whether each item in a list of traits was positive,negative, or neutral. In addition to these, we included afifth category for subliminally presented primes, as thisseemed to be substantially different from other forms ofsimple presentation. The results of the moderatoranalyses for priming method appear in Table 11.

Priming method does not appear to moderate assim-ilation or correction effects but does significantly mod-erate anchoring effects. Specifically, semantic tasksproduce the strongest anchoring effects, whereas sim-ple presentation, memory tasks, and procedural tasksall result in smaller effects of approximately equalmagnitude. By definition, semantic tasks, more thanany other type of priming method, focus perceivers onthe meaning of the primes. When the prime meaning isquite salient, this highlights the prime's potential rele-vance to the target, making it particularly likely to beused as a standard of comparison.

Processing capacity. Several researchers exam-ined how priming effects changed when perceiverswere placed under cognitive load. Most of these stud-ies were designed to examine the theory that peoplecan perform correction only when they have sufficient




Table 11. Moderator Analyvses for Priming Method


Simple presentationNumber of effects 8 3Number of participants 620 236Mean weighted d 0.3217 -0.4099

Memory taskNumber of effects 1 3Number of participants 889 193 41Mean weighted d 0.3520 -0.4420 -0.3908

Procedural taskNumber of effects 15 5 4Number of participants 1954 469 450Mean weighted d 0.289 -0.4105 -0.6240

Semantic taskNumber of effects 8 6 5Number of participants 574 387 292Mean weighted d 0.4726 -0.7831 -0.6807

SubliminalNumber of effects 10Number of participants 656Mean weighted d 0.3929

Test Qb[4] = 4.1332 Qb[3] = 8.2712 Qb[2] = 0.7559(p=.3883) (p=.0407) (p=.6853)

processing capacity. To test this hypothesis meta-ana-lytically, we selected the set of effects in which partici-pants were made aware of the influence of the primes.Under normal situations, we would expect people tocorrect their impressions, leading to evaluations thatare biased away from the primes. We wanted to deter-mine if reduced processing capacity would preventpeople from performing correction, resulting in anoverall assimilative effect. Note that this analysis nec-essarily includes effects from both the assimilation andcorrection literatures. The results of this analysis arepresented in Table 12.We clearly see that participants who had full pro-

cessing capacity contrasted theirjudgments away fromthe primes, whereas those with reduced processing ca-pacity assimilated their judgments toward the primes.This pattern replicates those typically found in primaryresearch (e.g., Martin et al., 1990), supporting the hy-pothesis that assimilation effects occur automaticallybut that people with sufficient capacity can con-sciously correct for the influence of the primes. A sec-ondary analysis indicates that the assimilation effect

Table 12. Moderator Analysis fior Processing Capacity

Normal capacityNumber of effects 11Number of participants 897Mean weighted d -0.6631

Reduced capacityNumber of effects 4Number of participants 158Mean weighted d 0.5280

Test Qb[ 1] = 44.9088(p <.0001)

shown by participants who are aware of primes buthave reduced processing capacity is not significantlydifferent from that shown by participants who are un-aware of the primes, Qb(1) = 1. 1632, p = 0.2808.

Object of impression. Most of effects werebased on conditions under which participants formedimpressions of written materials, most commonly Hig-gins et al.'s (1977) or Srull and Wyer's (1979) Donaldparagraphs. A few studies had participants form im-pressions of live or recorded individuals. The results ofthe moderator analyses of the object of impression ap-pear in Table 13.

The object of the impression had a significant influ-ence on assimilation effects, such that primes have astronger effect on impressions of written descriptionsthan on impressions of live or recorded targets. The ob-ject of impression did not moderate the strength of cor-rection, although this may have been caused by thesmall number of participants exposed to live or re-corded targets. There were no examples of anchoringthat used a live or recorded person as a target, so no testcould be performed.

There are two possible explanations for why assimi-lation effects may be larger for written materials. Oneexplanation concerns the linguistic nature of priming.Some of the earliest demonstrations of priming in thecognitive literature illustrated how the presentation ofone word could facilitate recognition of another (e.g.,Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971). If we think about whatpurpose priming might serve in human cognition, oneplausible explanation is that it is designed to facilitatelinguistic processing. Even though it is an everyday oc-



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

Table 13. Moderator Analyses for the Object ofImpression


Live person/recording of personNumber of effectsNumber of participantsMean weighted d

Written descriptionNumber of effectsNumber of participantsMean weighted d

Test

currence, face-to-face communication is truly a daunt-ing task from an information-processing perspective.People talk at a rate of approximately 140 words per

minute, with each selected from a lexicon of roughly20,000 to 60,000 words (Semin, 2000). This activitycould be made much simpler if the lexicon could be re-

duced to the words that are most likely to be used in thepresent conversation. Priming may have developed toact as a filter, restricting the competition of words tothose most relevant to the topic at hand. If the purpose

of priming is to facilitate linguistic communication, itmay have its strongest effects on linguistic stimuli.

Another possible explanation for this effect is thattrait primes are most effective if the target and primeare processed through the same modality. Carlston's(1994) associated systems theory suggests that impres-sions consist of information derived from four primarymental systems: the verbal, visual, affective, and be-havioral. Each of these systems is associated with a

particular type of mental representation. Of most rele-vance here is that traits are the representations associ-ated with the verbal system. Cognitive psychologistshave demonstrated that use of a processing system can

facilitate subsequent processing fluency of related in-formation (e.g., Bryden & Ley, 1983; Kroll & Potter,1984). Thus, a trait prime may activate the verbal sys-

tem, perhaps "warming it up" for processing other ver-

bal materials. This could explain why trait primes seemparticularly effective in conjunction with verbal tar-gets. We are not suggesting that trait primes have an ef-fect only on the interpretation of verbally presented tar-

gets. Instead, we merely hypothesize that a match be-tween the modalities of the prime and target might leadto larger priming effects.

Type of dependent measure. Studies in our

sample collected responses in one of two ways. Mostmeasured participants' impressions using rating scales,but a few allowed participants to provide open-endeddescriptions that were then coded as being similar to or

different from the primed trait. The results of the mod-erator analyses for the type of dependent measure ap-pear in Table 14.

The type ofdependent measure does not appear to in-fluence assimilation effects but does influence theamount ofcorrection. The influence on anchoring couldnot be tested because all studies investigating anchoringeffects used rating scales. Correction effects are greaterwhen evaluations of targets are collected using scalesthan when assessed using an open-ended format. Onepossible explanation is that it is easier to apply a correc-

tion when working with a scale response. Suppose par-

ticipants are primed with a trait and are latermade aware

of this potential bias. They may reason, "I would haverated the target as a 7, but to correct for the prime, I'lldrop itdown to a 4." The use ofa rating scale may make itvery easy for people to provide a more extremeprime-inconsistent response. However, these adjust-ments may be more difficult to make when providing anopen-ended response. Participants may not know whatcharacteristics of the target they should emphasize intheir essay to offset the influence of the prime.

Table 14. Moderator Analyses for the Type ofDependent Measure


Rating scaleNumber of effects 43 12 9Number of participants 3915 1169 721Mean weighted d 0.3601 -0.5 105 -0.7947

Open-ended judgmentNumber of effects 7 3Number of participants 1006 189Mean weighted d 0.3216 -0.1854

Test Qb[ II = 0.2922 NA Qb 1I] = 13.5817(p =.5888) (p= .0002)

16

6286

0.0885

4243910.3637

Qb[1I = 5.0664(p = .0244)

22-0. 1020

121109

-0.5180NA

8847

-0.7005Qb[1] = 1.9346

(p = .1643)




The use of a rating scale could additionally increaseparticipants' awareness of the prime. With a scale re-sponse, the primed dimension is made salient becausethe trait label (or a close synonym) is explicitly men-tioned in the question used to collect the rating. Seeingthe primed trait listed in the rating scale provides par-ticipants with another opportunity to become aware ofthe influence of the primes. In an open-ended response,participants are never asked directly to evaluate the tar-get in terms of the primed construct. Therefore, partici-pants filling out a rating scale are likely be more awareof the primes than those answering an open-endedquestion, which logically should result in larger cor-rection effects.

Type of comparison. As discussed previously,studies in this literature used different groups in theirstatistical comparisons. Those using what we call aunipolar design had an experimental group that re-ceived strong priming of a particular trait and a controlgroup that received either weaker or no priming of thattrait. Those using what we call a bipolar design had twogroups, each of which was primed with a different trait.Both groups were then asked to form an impression ofa stimulus that could be interpreted in terms of eithertrait. The results of the moderator analyses for the typeof comparison appear in Table 15.

No significant difference between unipolar and bi-polar designs was found for assimilation or correction

effects. For anchoring, bipolar designs generated sig-nificantly larger effects than those based on unipolardesigns. Besides priming two groups of participantswith different traits, bipolar designs differ from uni-polar designs in terms of the response scale used.When using a close-ended trait judgment as the de-pendent measure in a bipolar design, the responsescale is typically a semantic differential (e.g.,friendly-hostile). For a unipolar design, the depend-ent measure is typically a Likert-type scale (e.g., notat all hostile-very hostile). When asked to judge thetarget, the use of a scale with opposite-traitend-points may lead to a reported anchoring effectthat is even larger than originally perceived. Thecomparative nature of the bipolar scale may make thediscrepancy between the prime and the target moreobvious, leading to larger effects.

Publication location. The Journal of Personal-ity and Social Psychology, the Journal ofExperimentalSocial Psychology, and the Personality and Social Psy-chology Bulletin were the most prestigious places topublish priming studies. We wanted to determinewhether this prestige might be associated with strongeror weaker effects. We placed all articles published inany of these three journals into one category and allother articles into a different category. The results forthe moderator analyses of publication location appearin Table 16. These analyses indicate that publication

Table 15. Moderator Analyses for the Type of Comparison


UnipolarNumber of effects 17 3 1Number of participants 1601 322 42Mean weighted d 0.2780 -0.2591 -0.7731

BipolarNumber of effects 27 8 7Number of participants 2948 847 702Mean weighted d 0.3453 -0.5921 -0.8053

Test Qb[l] = 1.1695 Qb[l] = 8.3378 Qb[ I ] = 0.00004(p =.2795) (p-=.0039) (p= .9950)

Table 16. Moderator Analyse~s for Publication Location


JPSP, JESP, PSPBNumber of effects 31 7 7Number of participants 3675 945 787Mean weighted d 0.3686 -0.4992 -0.6953

Other locationsNumber of effects 14 4 2Number of participants 1118 224 83Mean weighted d 0.3063 -0.5594 -0.5803

Test Qb[ I] = 0.8113 Qb[Ij = 0.1570 QbLI] = 0.2365(p-= .3677) (1= .6919) (p = .6268)

Note: JPSP = Journal ot Pcrsonalitv and Social Psychology. JFSP = Journal ofExperimental Social Psvchology, PSPB = Personality and SocialPsychology Bulletin.



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

location has no effect on the strength of assimilation,anchoring, or correction effects.

Awareness check. A number of studies includedprocedures to determine if participants were aware ofthe priming manipulation and its connection to theirjudgments. Those using supraliminal priming typicallyasked if participants noticed a connection between thepriming and impression formation phases of the exper-iment. Those using subliminal priming typically mea-sured the proportion of priming stimuli that were visi-ble. Studies that included an awareness check typicallyexcluded participants that indicated a heightenedawareness of the priming stimuli. The results of themoderator analyses for the presence of an awarenesscheck appear in Table 17.We can see that for all types of priming effects, stud-

ies that included an awareness check appear to have sig-nificantly smaller effects than those that did not includean awareness check. In general, the inclusion of anawareness check indicates greater experimental rigor.Our results suggest that studies with less rigorous meth-odologies may have inflated estimates of the effects ofpriming.

A General Model of InformationalBiases

In our introduction, we reviewed a number of differ-ent theories explaining priming effects, each describ-ing how a particular type of priming works within aparticular domain. To date, there has been no attemptto incorporate all priming effects within a single, uni-fied theory. To fill this void, we propose a generalmodel that describes the mental processes responsiblefor assimilation, anchoring, and correction effects, aswell as how these are each influenced by moderatingvariables. We base our theory on the results of thismeta-analysis, as well as several models previouslygenerated by other researchers. We hope to demon-strate that our theory successfully explains the influ-ence of priming on impressions and that it can also beused to help understand how irrelevant information can

bias judgments more generally. Following the presen-tation of our model, we describe the implications itholds for a diverse range of topics, including priming,chronic accessibility, context effects, and stereotyping.

Existing Theories Related toInformational Biases

It is well known that people are not objective infor-mation processors. When asked to make judgments,people make use of logically relevant information, butare also affected by other aspects of the context. Asmentioned earlier, Schwarz and Bless (1992) proposedthat the initial influence of an irrelevant contextualstimulus depends on whether it is included with or ex-cluded from the target. Stimuli that are included withthe target become incorporated into its mental repre-sentation, biasing judgments toward the context. Ex-cluded stimuli can instead be used as standards of com-parison, resulting in judgments that are biased awayfrom the context.

Whether a particular stimulus is included or ex-cluded depends on the degree to which it matches thegeneral characteristics of the target (Schwarz & Bless,1992). Stimuli that are inconsistent with targets (suchthat the characteristics present in the target imply theabsence of characteristics present in the stimulus) tendto be excluded, whereas those that are consistent withtargets tend to be included. Schwarz and Bless pro-posed that an important determinant of the consistencybetween the stimulus and the target is the specificitywith which they are defined. The more specifically ei-ther is defined, the more likely the context will be ex-cluded from the target. Specifically defined stimuli aremore likely to include idiosyncratic features that areincompatible with the target. Similarly, specifically de-fined targets provide a more complex set of criteria thatstimuli need to match to be included. Broadly definedstimuli or targets present fewer opportunities for mis-matches and so will more likely result in the contextbeing included in the target's representation.

The process by which inclusion leads to assimila-tion and exclusion leads to anchoring may be related toselective accessibility. Mussweiler (2003) proposed

Table 17. Moderator Analyses for Awareness Check


Awareness checkNumber of effects 30 5 3Number of participants 3186 462 208Mean weighted d 0.3051 -).3 142 -0.3325

No awareness checkNumber of effects 23 8 7Number of participants 1607 707 661Mean weighted d 0.4426 -0.6408 -0.7967

Test QblII=4.8954 Qb[I]=7.1813 Qb[I]=8.2153(p= .0269) (p= .0074) (p= .0042)




that social judgments always take place in a compara-tive context. He argued that when asked to judge a tar-get, people first select a relevant standard, compare itto the target, and finally integrate the outcome of thecomparison into their evaluation. Assimilation and an-choring effects primarily differ in the way that targetsare compared to the standard. When the target appearsto share surface characteristics with the standard (as isthe case with included primes), people engage similar-ity testing, whereby they search for features that thestandard and target have in common, making themhighly accessible. This makes aspects of the target thatare consistent with the standard more likely to be usedin the judgment, leading to assimilation effects. Whenthe target does not share surface characteristics withthe standard (as is the case with excluded primes), peo-ple engage dissimilarity testing, whereby they searchfor differences between the target and the standard. Inthis case, the aspects of the target that are inconsistentwith the standard become highly accessible, leading toanchoring effects.

Research suggests that both including (assimila-tion) and excluding (anchoring) primes can occur auto-matically. Evidence for the automaticity of assimila-tion effects has been provided by Bargh andPietromonaco (1982), who found assimilation effectsdue to primes presented outside of awareness, andThompson, Roman, Moskowitz, Chaiken, and Bargh(1994), who demonstrated that assimilation is not in-fluenced by the presence of a cognitive load. Evidencefor the automaticity of anchoring effects is provided byresearchers such as Moskowitz and Skurnik (1999),who have shown that anchoring effects are unaffectedby cognitive load, and Weary and Reich (2001), whodemonstrated an automatic anchoring effect in the do-main of chronic future-event expectancies.

Contextual stimuli can also elicit reactions beyondthese automatic effects. When people are asked to eval-uate a target, they usually try to do so in the most cor-rect and unbiased way that they can. Therefore, whenpeople become aware that irrelevant information mayhave influenced theirjudgment, they usually try to con-sciously correct their opinion to counteract the bias(Martin, 1986). Based on this phenomenon, Wegenerand Petty (1995) proposed that biasing information canhave two distinct effects on judgments. In theirflexiblecorrection model, default processing first has the op-portunity to create assimilation or contrast effects onjudgments. Then, if people become aware of the biasand have sufficient motivation and capacity, they mayadditionally alter their judgment through consciouscorrection. The net effect of a contextual stimulus on ajudgment can be found by combining the default andcorrective effects.

According to this model, the way that people cor-rect for a bias depends on how they perceive it affectedtheir judgment (Wegener & Petty, 1995). If they be-

lieve that their judgments were made more similar tothe biasing information, they perform corrective con-trast to make them less similar. Conversely, if peoplethink that theirjudgments were made less similar to thebiasing information, they perform corrective assimila-tion to make them more similar. Wegener and Petty re-ferred to the beliefs people have about the influence ofbiasing information on their judgments as "naive theo-ries." When people decide to correct their judgments,there is no guarantee that these corrections will be re-lated to the true bias in either strength or direction. In-deed, primary research has typically shown that peoplehave a strong tendency to overcorrect for perceived bi-ases (Martin, 1986; Martin et al., 1990).

With the explanation of default processing drawnfrom Schwarz and Bless (1992) and the explanation ofcorrective processing drawn from Wegener and Petty(1995), all that lacks for a complete theory of how in-formational biases affect judgments is a frameworkthat can explain their respective roles. We believe thatsuch a framework can be found in Smith andDeCoster's (2000) generalized dual-process theory.These researchers propose that there are two basicways that people process social information. First, peo-ple have an "associative" processing mode that oper-ates automatically and makes use of simple memorytraces that are formed whenever two stimuli occur to-gether in the environment. Second, people have a"rule-based" processing mode that operates with con-scious attention and makes use of more complex, lin-guistic information. Smith and DeCoster proposed thatwhenever people observe a stimulus, it is automaticallysubjected to associative processing. Associative pro-cessing takes little effort and can typically be per-formed even in the presence of other demands on atten-tion. Rule-based processing takes a substantial amountof mental effort, however, so it is only performed whenpeople possess strong motivations and have availablecapacity. When people expend the effort to performrule-based processing, it does not supplant associativeprocessing. Instead the two modes operate in parallel,with each providing its own contribution.

Synthesis of Existing Theories to Forma General Model of Informational Bias

We believe that biasing information can influencejudgments through two independent modes. First, in-formation can directly influence judgments throughdefault processing, which creates the initial bias inpeople's responses. Assuming that this is based on theassociative mode in Smith and DeCoster's (2000)model, we believe that default processing proceeds au-tomatically and requires little conscious attention. Peo-ple can also choose to engage corrective processing inresponse to the biasing influence of default processing.Assuming that this is based on the rule-based mode in



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

Smith and DeCoster's model, we believe that correc-tive processing takes place only in circumstances inwhich people have sufficient motivation and capacity.A representation of our model is presented in Figure 1.

As noted in the top half of Figure 1, the amount ofbias created through default processing depends on theextent to which a construct is made accessible and itsrelevance to the judgment. The more a construct is acti-vated, the stronger an effect it will have (although thisinfluence declines over time). The strength of its influ-ence also depends on the relation between the activatedconstruct and the constructs involved in the judgment.The more applicable the primed construct is to the tar-get, the stronger an effect it will have. Additionally,contextual information directly related to the judgeddimension will have larger effects than other types ofinformation.

The direction of the default impact of biasing infor-mation on a judgment depends on whether the infor-mation is included with or excluded from the target.We believe that information that is included with thetarget becomes incorporated in its mental representa-tion, leading to default assimilation effects, whereasinformation that is excluded from the target is used toanchor the judgment, leading to default contrast ef-fects. As originally proposed by Schwarz and Bless(1992), whether information is included or excluded isdetermined primarily by the extent to which the acti-

vated construct has components that are inconsistentwith the target. The more distinct the activated con-struct and the target are, the more likely that the con-struct will be excluded from the target. One of the pri-mary determinants of consistency is the specificity ofthe biasing information. Information that activates aspecific mental construct (such as an exemplars) tendsto be used as a scale anchor, leading to default contrast.On the other hand, information that activiates a generalmental construct (such as a trait) tends to be incorpo-rated in the target, leading to default assimilation.

If individuals believe a piece of contextual infor-mation may bias their judgments, they may attempt tocorrect for that bias. As shown in the bottom of Fig-ure 1, such correction occurs when perceivers haveawareness, motivation, and processing capacity. Peo-ple do not correct their judgments if they fail to no-tice the biasing information or believe that the judg-ment is inconsequential. Additionally, undercircumstances whereby people wish to correct theirjudgments, they will only be able to do so if theyhave sufficient processing capacity. The direction andamount of corrective processing depends on the "na-ive theories" possessed by perceivers regarding howtheir judgment was biased. As originally proposed byWegener and Petty (1995), we believe that people tryto correct their judgment in a way that opposes the di-rection of the theorized bias. If people suspect that in-

Inclusion Default assimilationw distinctiveness) (incorporation)

of bias determined by;ibility and relevance

:n of bias determinedy distinctiveness

Exclusion Default contrast;h distinctiveness) (anchoring)

Biasing _----------information

,LCorrective processing(rule-based mode)

Occurs only withawareness, motivation,

and capacity

Ir Assumed exclusion(anchoring theory)

Corrected contrast(to remove

incorporation bias)

Figure 1. A general model of informational biases.




appropriate information has become incorporated intheir representation of the target (resulting in defaultassimilation), they will apply corrective contrast. Ifpeople suspect that their judgment has been biased bya salient standard of comparison (resulting in defaultcontrast), they will apply corrective assimilation. Ad-ditionally, people apply a larger correction if they be-lieve that their judgment was strongly biased than ifthey believe it was only weakly biased (Wegener &Petty, 1995). Because it is possible for people to pos-sess erroneous theories, the amount and direction ofcorrective processing is not necessarily related to thetrue amount and direction of the original default pro-cessing bias.

Biasing information can therefore have both defaultand corrective effects on ajudgment. The net effect canbe determined by simply adding together the influ-ences of default and corrective processing. However,we propose that information can only induce a singledefault effect and a single corrective effect on a spe-cific judgment. Although default and corrective pro-cessing can occur concurrently, a single piece of infor-mation cannot be both included in and excluded fromthe target when making an evaluation, nor canperceivers simultaneously believe that their judgmentwas both biased toward and biased away from a stimu-lus. Therefore, we do not believe that information canbe simultaneously incorporated with the target andused as a standard of comparison (although we do al-low that a prime could be included in one judgment of atarget while excluded from another, as demonstratedby Mussweiler & Strack, 2000), nor can informationinduce both corrective assimilation and corrective con-trast in the same judgment.

Evidence for the Model

Evidence for our model can be found in the exist-ing literature as well as our meta-analysis. Several ofour moderators provide support for the hypothesisthat default effects depend on the accessibility andrelevance of the primed constructs. The analysis ofdelay indicated that default assimilation effectstended to decrease as the length of time between thepriming and impression tasks increased. This is con-sistent with the theory that the strength of default ef-fects depends on accessibility, because accessibility isknown to decay with time. The importance of rele-vance can be seen in the analysis of applicability,where we observed that primes had a significant de-fault assimilation effect only when they were applica-ble to the target. Additional support was provided bythe analysis of the relation between the primed andjudged trait, in which we observed that both defaultassimilation and anchoring effects were strongerwhen the primes had descriptive implications for thejudgment than when they only had evaluative impli-

cations. These results demonstrate that primes thatare less relevant to either the target or the trait beingjudged have smaller effects than those that are morerelevant. Our failure to find an influence of trait rela-tion on correction effects is also consistent with themodel, which proposes that corrective processing isnot directly affected by relevance.

The meta-analysis additionally provides evidencethat corrective processing requires conscious attention.In our analysis of processing capacity, we observedthat participants corrected their impressions whenmade aware of the primes under normal circumstancesbut were unable to do so when their capacity was re-duced. We also found no difference between assimila-tion conditions without a load compared to assimila-tion conditions with a load. This latter finding isconsistent with the model's claim that the default effectof a stimulus is not dependent on conscious attention.

Our meta-analysis does not provide direct evidencethat the direction of the default influence of a prime de-pends on its specificity. However, such evidence can befound in a series of studies conducted by Stapel andKoomen (1996) and Stapel, Koomen, and van der Pligt(1996). These authors have consistently demonstratedthat primes typically resulting in assimilation are usedas standards of comparison if they are made more indi-vidualized. For example, Stapel and Koomen demon-strated that trait-word primes tend to be assimilated inimpressions but produce contrast effects if the traits arepresented as descriptions of specific individuals (i.e.,"conceited" vs. "Peter is conceited"). Similarly, Stapelet al. showed that behavioral primes tend to be assimi-lated in impressions unless the behaviors are associ-ated with specific individuals. More generally, theseresearchers showed that primes resulting in the activa-tion of a general trait construct tend to produce assimi-lation while primes resulting in the activation of a spe-cific exemplar tend to produce contrast effects (Stapel& Koomen, 1997; Stapel, Koomen, & van der Pligt,1997).

Evidence that the direction of the correction forprime depends on participants' naive theories hasbeen provided by Wegener and Petty (1995). Theseauthors developed manipulations that could induceparticipants to expect either that a given stimuluswould become incorporated in their judgments or thatit would be used as a standard of comparison. Theythen demonstrated that participants induced to believethat a stimulus was incorporated in their judgmentsperformed corrective contrast, whereas those inducedto believe that a stimulus acted as a standard of com-parison performed corrective assimilation. They thenextended these findings by demonstrating that assess-ments of participants' idiosyncratic beliefs about theinfluence of a stimulus could be used to predict thedirection of their corrective processing in the absenceof a manipulation.



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

Implications of the Model

Although the development of our model was origi-nally based on priming research, we believe that it canbe used to explain biases arising from a wide variety ofinformation sources. One important factor discriminat-ing potential sources is whether the source is a part ofthe perceiver's experience or is part of what is beingperceived. A second is whether the information derivesfrom permanent characteristics of the party involved(and so would be present any time the perceiver wouldjudge the target) or from transitory aspects of the situa-tion (and so are only present because of the specific cir-cumstances that were in place at the time ofjudgment).In the following, we show how our model can be ap-plied to research within each combination of these twofactors. Some of the predictions we make could also bederived from the theories we used to form our model(Schwarz & Bless, 1992; Smith & DeCoster, 2000;Wegener & Petty, 1995), whereas others uniquely re-sult from our synthesis.

Priming effects are caused by transitory informa-tion originating in the experience of the perceiver. Inthis case, the information comes from stimuli recentlyviewed by the perceiver that are logically irrelevant totheir judgment. Although many of the implications ofour model for trait-priming research have already beenobserved in the literature, there has been a noticeablelack of research on corrective assimilation. By default,people appear to believe that exposure to trait-relatedprimes will lead to assimilation effects. In a recentstudy, Stapel et al. (1998) asked participants what theythought would be the effect of priming on impressions.Although most expected no effect, when pressed tochoose either assimilation or contrast, an overwhelm-ing majority believed that priming would cause assimi-lation. Given the predominance of assimilation theo-ries, it is unsurprising that trait-priming research oncorrection has universally found contrast effects.Though corrected assimilation has yet to be demon-strated in the trait-priming literature, our model sug-gests that such an effect could occur. If a prime weresufficiently extreme, participants might develop a na-ive theory that it anchored their judgment. Alterna-tively, researchers could provide participants with atheory of bias, suggesting that exposure to a particularprime would lead to contrast. We would expect partici-pants'judgments to show corrective assimilation underthese circumstances.

Chronic accessibility is an example of bias causedby permanent information originating in the experi-ence of the perceiver. The phenomenon of chronic ac-cessibility is similar to priming, except that it considersnaturally occurring individual differences in trait ac-cessibility instead of differences created by the intro-duction of a prime. People with a chronically accessi-ble trait have used it in past judgments so frequently

that they are more likely to use it when evaluating newtargets than other traits, even without recent priming(Bargh, Bond, Lombardi, & Tota, 1986). Research hasalso shown that the effects of chronic accessibility arefairly automatic (Bargh & Pratto, 1986; Bargh &Thein, 1985). We therefore believe it would fit into ourmodel as an example of a default assimilation effect.

Although research has focused exclusively on thechronic accessibility of traits, it is interesting to specu-late that people might also develop chronically accessi-ble exemplars. We believe that frequent exposure to aparticularly extreme exemplar, like Osama Bin Laden,could make it chronically accessible and automaticallyused as a standard of comparison when judging targets.This would lead to default contrast effects even in theabsence of any manipulations of accessibility. We alsosuggest that researchers might measure the naive theo-ries people have about the effects of a chronically ac-cessible trait or exemplar to determine whether theycan be used to predict the direction of correction forthese effects.

The influence of transitory information present atthe time ofjudgment has often been investigated underthe rubric of "context effects." As an example, researchon interpersonal attraction has demonstrated that menrate both known and unknown women as less attractivewhen they are placed in the context of unusually attrac-tive women (Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980; Kenrick,Gutierres, & Goldberg, 1989). Our model explainsthese results by claiming that specific, extremely at-tractive individuals are very distinct and are thereforelikely to be excluded from judgments of other targets,leading to default contrast effects. There is also evi-dence that people viewing pleasant movie scenes rateunfamiliar people as more attractive than those view-ing unpleasant scenes (Friedman, Rubin, Jacobson, &Clore, 1978). The context is not individualized in thiscase so it may be incorporated in the judgment, leadingto default assimilation effects. Assimilation and con-trast context effects were examined together in a set ofstudies performed by Brown, Novick, Lord, and Rich-ards (1992). These researchers found that participants'judgments of their own attractiveness were lower afterviewing photographs of attractive others and higher af-ter viewing photos of unattractive others. However, ifthe participants believed that the pictured individualsheld similar attitudes and values, the reverse patternwas found. These findings show that contexts possess-ing a basis for inclusion cause default assimilation,whereas excluded contexts cause default contrast.

Although many researchers have documented thepresence of context effects because of their potentialrole as experimental confounds, little research has ex-amined either the process by which context effects oc-cur or the influence of corrective instructions on thesejudgments. Our model claims that the effects that havebeen investigated so far represent the default process-




ing of the context, so they should proceed automati-cally and be influenced by the accessibility and rele-vance of the mental constructs activated by the contqxt.We additionally propose that people can consciouslycorrect for the influence of these effects and that thesecorrections depend on their naive theories regardingthe effect of the bias.

Finally, stereotypes represent a permanent source ofbiasing information that is perceived at the time ofjudgment. It is fairly well established that exposure to amember of a social category activates the associatedstereotype automatically (Bargh, 1999). The stereo-type can then be used to fill in missing informationabout the target or to interpret behaviors the target per-forms. Because these represent incorporations of ste-reotypical information in the impression, we proposethat these effects result from default assimilation. Onthe other hand, default contrast effects have been ob-served when targets fail to meet stereotypical expecta-tions. Ho, Driscoll, and Loosbrock (1998) had partici-pants grade the poor mathematical performance ofeither an Asian or a White target. They observed thatparticipants assigned lower grades to Asian than toWhite targets under normal circumstances, indicatingthat the evaluations were contrasted with the stereo-type. Additionally, the grade assignments did not differwhen participants were provided with accuracy in-structions, indicating that participants performed cor-rective assimilation when they had strong motivations.

Our model claims that the ease with which a stimu-lus can become included in a social judgment dependson the specificity with which either the stimulus or thetarget is defined. We therefore claim that stereotypesthat have very specific content, such as behaviors or el-ements of physical appearance, are less likely to be as-similated into target impressions and more likely to beused as standards of comparison than stereotypes withmore general content, such as traits. The principle ofspecificity also suggests that the more detail perceivershave about individual characteristics of the target, themore likely the stereotype is used as a standard of com-parison. Finally, we also believe that participants' na-ive theories about the impact of stereotypes on judg-ments of social-category members predict the directionof conscious correction.

Other Implications of theMeta-Analysis

Although many of our results can be interpreted interms of our general model of informational biases, weobserved several additional findings that deserve inde-pendent attention. In the following we discuss our in-terpretation of these results as well as the implicationsthey hold for future research on priming.

We had hoped to apply Skowronski and Carlston's(1989) research on trait diagnosticity to priming ef-fects, but the present literature lacks the diversity re-quired to draw any firm conclusions. Priming research-ers have overwhelmingly preferred negative to positiveprimes and traits related to morality to those related toability. For this reason, we were able to observe onlythat negative morality primes lead to stronger assimila-tion effects than negative ability primes. This is gener-ally supportive of the notion that diagnostic primeslead to stronger effects than nondiagnostic primes.However, the negative morality primes necessarily in-volve a different set of traits than the negative abilityprimes. It may simply be that the morality primes werestronger than the ability primes used in these studies. Ifwe could have also demonstrated that positive abilityprimes lead to stronger assimilation effects than posi-tive morality primes, we would have been more certainin concluding that prime diagnosticity is an importantmoderator of priming effects. Unfortunately, therewere no instances of positive ability primes in our sam-ple of studies, preventing such an analysis. We suggestthat this hypothesis be tested in primary research.We considered the purpose of priming in human

cognition in our interpretation of the moderating effectof the object of the impression. Even though our ownconjectures must be labeled as speculative, we believethat this would be a very fruitful path of both theoreti-cal consideration and empirical study. Although re-searchers have produced several theories explainingwhy we observe priming effects from a mechanicalperspective, no one has produced a theory explainingwhy we observe priming effects from a functional per-spective. Priming is implicated in many phenomenaacross both social and cognitive psychology, warrant-ing a better understanding of its adaptive functions. Westrongly encourage investigators to consider this intheir future examinations of priming.

In addition to providing information about the fac-tors that influence priming effects, our meta-analysis re-veals that the situations under which they have been in-vestigated have been very limited. Most of the studieswere conducted in a college laboratory, and most limitedtheir participant population to college students. Almostevery study had participants form impressions of writ-ten vignettes instead of more realistic targets. Thosestudies using a unipolar design relied heavily on traitswith negative connotations at the expense of positiveand neutral traits. And finally, the delay between the pre-sentations of the prime and the object of impression wasrarely more than 10 min. The literature on contrast hasbeen even more uniform. In addition to the limitationslisted previously, no contrast studies have attempted touse subliminal priming, and none have examined the in-fluence of the applicability of primes to the target. Wewish to call attention to these deficits in the literature sothat future researchers may fill in the gaps.



DeCOSTER & CLAYPOOL

With more than a quarter century of research todraw on, we believe that it is an appropriate time to re-vise our understanding of how primes affect impres-sions. Rather than thinking of priming effects as sim-ply being either assimilation or contrast, we believethat it is essential to additionally consider whether thisresulted from either default or corrective processing. Itis also important for those interested in this field tobroaden their perspectives to see how their researchmight apply to other domains and what these domainsmay have to say about their own experimental pro-grams. We hope that both the results of this meta-anal-ysis and the framework provided by our generalizedmodel of informational biases can aid future investiga-tors in these endeavors.

References

References marked with an asterisk indicate studies in-cluded in the meta-analysis.*Abreu, J. M. (1999). Conscious and nonconscious African Ameri-

can stereotypes: Impact on first impression and diagnostic rat-ings by therapists. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychol-ogy 67, 387-393.

*Banaji, M. R., Hardin, C., & Rothman, A. J. (1993). Implicit stereo-typing in person judgment. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 65, 272-281.

Bargh, J. A. (1999). The cognitive monster: The case against the con-trollability of automatic stereotype effects. In S. Chaiken & Y.Trope (Eds.), Dual-process theories in social psychology (pp.361-382) New York: Guilford.

*Bargh, J. A., Bond, R. N., Lombardi, W. J., & Tota, M. E. (1986).The additive nature of chronic and temporary sources of con-struct accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-ogy, 50, 869 878.

*Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of so-cial behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype ac-tivation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-ogy, 71, 230-244.

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Appendix A. Table ofAssimilatiot, Effec-i

Study

Abreu (1999)Banaji, Hardin, & Rothman (1993)Bargh, Bond, Lombardi, & Tota (1986)Bargh, Chen, & Burrows (1996)*Bargh, Lombardi, & Higgins (1988)Bargh & Pietromonaco (1982)Brotanek & Kayson (1996)Carver, Ganellen, Froming, & Chambers (1983)Chen & Bargh (I1997)Devine (1989)Erber. Caiola, Williams, & Prager (1997)Erdley & D'Agostino (1988)Fazio, Powell, & Herr (1983)Ford & Kruglanski (1995)Goncalves & Ivey (1987)Herr (1986)Herr, Sherman, & Fazio (1983)Higgins, Rholes, & Jones (1977)Ikegami (1993)Ikegami & Kawaguchi (1989)Kinicki, Hom, Trost, & Wade (1995)Levy (1996)Martin (1986)Martin, Seta, & Crelia (1990)Moskowitz & Roman (1992)Newman, Duff, Hedburg, & Blitstein (1996)Philippot, Schwarz, Carrera, De Vries, &

Van Yperen (1991)Reeves & Garramone (1983)Schneider & Blankmeyer (1983)Sedikides (1990)Sinclair, Mark, & Shotland (1987)Skowronski, Carlston, & Isham (1993)Smith & Branscombe (1987)Smith & Branscombe (1988)Southwick, Steele, & Lindell (1986)*Srull & Wyer (1979)Srull & Wyer (1980)Stapel & Koomen (1996)Stapel & Koomen (1997)Stapel & Koomen (1998)Stapel, Koomen, & van der Pligt (1996)Stapel, Koomen, & van der Pligt (1997)Stapel, Koomen, & Zeelenberg (1998)Stapel & Schwarz (1998)Strack, Schwarz, Bless, Kubler, &Wanke

(1993)Thompson, Roman, Moskowitz, Chaiken, &

Bargh (1994)Wann & Branscombe (1990)

Sizes

N d

60 0.1200148 0.1495219 0.322434 0115 -0.351450 0.530580 -0.035478 0.265746 0.240078 0.3542123 0.066245 0.613660 0.275393 0.375836 0.7591100 0.131940 0.479660 0.529044 1.131680 0.8140159 0.0423100 0.396460 1.186974 0.9766116 0.518766.75 0.052373 0.4455

4996

4788811016228148809632.33108145174.6280.5179.812540

244.5

0.48160.49860.20320.12400.47890.02900.39630.08305.65570.13821.04640.23980.24320.62590.42070.93930.47240.6187

0.3425

86 0.4940

'-Studies that were identified as outliers and excluded from analyses.



PRIMING ANI) IMPRESSION FORMATION

Appendix B. Table ofAnchoring Effect Sizes.

Study N d

Banaji, Hardin, & Rothman (1993) 151 -0.0598Herr (1986) 100 -0.4461Herr, Sherman, & Fazio (1983) 80 -0.1781Philippot, Schwarz, Carrera, De Vries, & Van 73 _0.7359

Yperen (1991)Reeves & Garramone (1983) 83 -0.4531Stapel & Koomen (1996) 32.33 -0.7918Stapel & Koomen (1997) 36 -0.2668Stapel & Koomen (1998) 88 -0.3444Stapel, Koomen, & van der Pligt (1996) 287.3 -0.6470Stapel. Koomen, & van der Pligt (1997) 117.5 -0.4238Stapel, Koomen. & Zeelenberg (1998) 121.2 -1.2836

Appendix C. Table ot Correctioni EfJect Sizes.

Study N d

Ikegami (1993) 42 -0.7754Martin (1986) 60 -0.7336Martin, Seta, & Crelia (1990) 74 -0.6223Moskqwitz & Roman (1992) 116 -0.6622Newman, Duff. Hedburg, & Blitstein (1996) 22.25 -0.1020Stapel, Koomen, & Zeelenberg (1998) 264 -1.2704Stapel & Schwarz (1998) 125 -0.3579Strack, Schwarz, Bless, Kibler, & Wanke 41 -0.3908

(1993)Thompson, Roman, Moskowitz, Chaiken, & 125.5 -0.1754

Bargh (1994)



a meta-analysis of priming effects on impression formation supporting a general model of...

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