Assignment Psychology

Assignment Psychology

1. To what extent do you think Experiment 1 in the doyen et al (2012) paper is an exact methodological replication of Experiment 2 in the Bargh et al (1996) paper?

Discuss what you think are the important similarities and differences between these experiments.

The study, led by Doyen et al., (2012) aimed to replicate the seminal behavioral priming in relation to the study from 1996. In this original study, the authors tested whether subconsciously priming affects participants to think about age and could make them walk more slowly. However, in the new study, the experimenters found that priming effect was only seen when the experimenters' expectations for participant behavior were also manipulated. In addition, the results were not simply the results of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, the purpose of the study appear to reflect the environmental cues such as the experimenter's behavior, which acts together with the initial priming from the word game to affect the participants' behavior.

This study also found some problems in the original experiment:

First, the measurement of running time was performed manually using a stopwatch, which can lead to a significant inaccuracy in the measurement, and

Second, the description of the study cannot exclude the possibility that the experimenter was aware of the condition in which the subject was. It is well known that the "double-blind "is an optimal methodological point of view and avoids the possibility of experimenter's influence on the subject.

To address these issues, Doyen et al. (2012) conducted two studies in which researchers guaranteed the double-blind and replaced the manual measurement by electronic measurement. Researchers further explain that second study allows them to manipulate the expectations of the experimenter on the priming effect. In this study, half of the subjects began slowing the walking speed and the other half started to accelerate that. It is also important to know that the priming effect occurs only in the first group (Rhodewalt, 2008). It is observed on the actual running time, which also shows that the experimenters have influenced their subjects.

In fact, Doyen et al. (2012) suggests that it is necessary to update the behavioral priming paradigm as participants' behavior can be affected by unconscious determinants, goal, and experimenters' expectations that play a significant role in altering subject behaviors. Priming behavioral technique in which behavior is altered by the induction of subconscious acts as landmark in psychology. What differs from the non-social social behavior is if an individual has interaction with another person or group in his or her thoughts and through documents. For example, if a person wriggles through a crowd is not a social behavior as other people simply act as physical objects and barriers in his or her way (Cesario et al., 2006). However, if the person recognizes a friend in crowd that he or she was trying to reach to, the action can be converted into a social behavior.

2. Outline a well-designed follow-up experiment that would further evaluate the existence of behavioral priming. Be explicit about what you will manipulate, what ...