Unraveling Priming: When Does the Same Prime Activate a Goal versus a Trait?

Aner Sela and Baba Shiv

Journal of Consumer Research, 2009, vol. 36, issue 3, 418 - 433

Abstract: Consumers are constantly exposed to subtle situational cues that can influence behavior by priming either goals or "mere" semantic representations such as personality traits. However, little is known about when exactly such priming leads to goal activation, which can have enduring behavioral effects, and when the same prime leads to semantic activation, characterized by short-lived effects. This research proposes an activation-striving model, which proposes that behavioral effects of primes are moderated by discrepancies between the prime and the self-concept. Three studies suggest that self-consistent primes are more likely to influence choice via semantic activation, whereas self-discrepant primes are more likely to influence choice via goal activation.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/598612 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/598612 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:doi:10.1086/598612

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().