Priming

Priming is a psychological process in which exposure to a stimulus activates a concept in memory that is then given increased weight in subsequent judgment tasks. Priming works by making the activated concept accessible so that it can be readily used in evaluating related objects. For example, hearing news about the economy may prime individuals to focus on economic considerations when assessing a president's performance because economic concepts are activated, accessible, and presumably relevant for this type of evaluation. In this way, priming affects the opinions that individuals express, not by changing their attitudes, but by causing them to alter the criteria they use to evaluate the object in question.

Priming is a widely used concept with applications in the fields of psychology, political science, and communication. It is also relevant to survey researchers in that priming can inadvertently occur within questionnaires and interviewing, and surveys can be used to study the priming process.

Survey researchers recognize that their instruments may be susceptible to producing unintended priming effects that could bias key measurements. Inadvertent [Page 612]priming can occur when information presented in one part of the survey activates ideas that are then given increased weight in answering subsequent questions. Research in the Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology (CASM) movement suggests that respondents may use cues found within a survey as a way of addressing the cognitive challenges of survey participation. This can happen because respondents often do not have well-formed opinions on many survey topics and therefore have to contemplate a mixture of thoughts that come to mind when a question is posed. Ideally, respondents would search their memories for relevant information that could be used to generate a precise summary judgment. However, respondents may choose instead to reduce their cognitive effort by answering with whatever seemingly relevant information is immediately accessible, including information that may have been primed in earlier parts of the survey. By satisficing in this way, respondents can efficiently generate a serviceable, if not necessarily accurate, response by using little more than the ideas they have recently encountered.

To reduce the potential for inadvertent priming within a survey, researchers often carefully consider decisions about question order, wording, and format. A common strategy is to ask open-ended questions before related closed-ended questions so that the open-ended response is not a mere reflection of the ideas primed by the closed-ended form of the question. For example, political surveys typically ask respondents to assess “the biggest problem facing the nation today” before posing more specific questions about particular policies or political events. This ensures that the initial open-ended response is a measure of perceived major problems that does not inadvertently reflect recently primed considerations. Researchers also may take steps to ensure that the phrasing of their questions does not prime thoughts that will bias responses. They may even proactively seek to reduce priming effects by explicitly asking respondents to consider a number of factors before answering a question.

Surveys have also proven valuable in the study of priming, not only as measurement tools but as means to further understand the priming process. In fact, many survey experiments have used controlled manipulations of question order, wording, and format to measure the strength and effectiveness of priming in various situations. Other studies have reorganized surveys to test past findings that may have been biased by inadvertent priming within the survey. Indeed, survey research has been critical in measuring priming effects and illuminating our understanding of the priming process.

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