CONSEJOS PRÁCTICOS

It has been argued above that the desire to attain status is a fundamental human motive (cf. Anderson et al., 2015). Intriguingly, for the purposes of the thesis, this tendency can be activated in many ways. One such method often applied in the context of consumption choices is priming (see Bargh, 2006). As Janiszewski and Wyer (2014) formulate in their review article, “priming is an experimental framework in which the processing of an initially encountered stimulus is shown to influence a response to a subsequently encountered stimulus.”

“Priming occurs because the processing of the prime stimulus makes content, and the cognitive operations used to comprehend and manipulate this content, more accessible. In turn, accessible content and operations can influence subsequent judgments, decisions and overt behavior. Priming can occur without awareness of the factors that increase the accessibility of the content and operations. Priming can also influence all stages of information processing, including attention, comprehension, memory retrieval, inference, and response generation” (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014, p. 97).

Priming effects can be yielded in a number of direct and indirect ways, but in the context of consumer psychology, two main streams are commonly highlighted: content priming and cognitive process priming. In short, the first focuses on how priming exposure (i.e., primed content) affects subsequent perceptions, judgments, choices, and other responses, whereas in the latter, the focus is on the effects of cognitive processing on a subsequently performed task (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014, p. 97, 106). This work deals with the realm of content priming. The current priming research suggest that four types of content can be primed (directly and indirectly): semantic, affective, goal (motivational), and behavioral (motor). These four types are explored in more detail with illustrative case examples below. In semantic priming, the primer and the target are of the same semantic category (e.g., green and organic) and share certain features. They can be, for instance, people, events, objects, attributes, or the relationships between them. Jiang, Cho, and Adaval (2009) provide an example of direct semantic priming: the subliminal priming of luck using a lucky number or word increased participants’ feelings of being lucky and increased their estimated odds of winning a lottery. Berger and Fitzsimmons (2008), in turn, provide a case-in-point of indirect semantic priming effects. They asked participants to list different types of sweets and beverages just before Halloween. The dominant color of Halloween (orange) primed brands with which this color was associated and increased the likelihood that these brands would be mentioned.

Goal priming (i.e., eliciting a certain goal and subsequent information processing and behavior to help accomplish that goal – Custers & Aarts, 2005) is often closely related to semantic priming: goals are represented in the memory as semantic knowledge (Van Osselaer & Janizevski, 2012). However, unlike semantic concepts, goals possess motivational properties, leading goal priming to operate differently than other types of semantic priming (see Sela & Shiv, 2009). An illustrative example of direct goal priming is provided Bargh et al. (2001): priming achievement caused participants to work harder at a mundane task. Tong, Zheng, and Zhao (2013) discovered that after priming the concept of money, people became more frugal in their shopping choices. This is a good example of an indirect goal priming effect.

Direct affective priming occurs when primers (either chemical or stimulus-based) make affective states (e.g., moods, feeling states, and emotions) more accessible (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014, p. 101). Using odor primers, De Wijk and Zijlstra (2012) illustrated these effects well: priming with a citrus aroma improved participants’ moods, increased their heart rates, and made them choose less cheese, while a vanilla aroma did not influence food choice but affected introverted emotions. Indirect affective priming occurs when semantic content, goals, or motor behavior induce an affective state due an association between the primed content and the affective state (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014, p. 102). Goal pursuit and indirect affective priming often go hand in hand. For example, when athletes were primed with the goals of academic achievement and exercise, they experienced goal conflict and reduced their physical exercise (Bailis et al., 2011). Another example of this interplay is provided by Winkielman, Berridge, and Wilbarger (2005). They used smiling as compared to sad faces in their priming efforts and found that thirsty people poured and drank more of a beverage when the faces were happy as opposed to sad.

Direct behavioral priming occurs when the observation of a behavior increases the accessibility of the cognitive representation of the behavior and, consequently, the likelihood that the behavior will be performed (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014, p. 103). The most common type of direct behavioral priming is mimicry. Tanner et al. (2008) provide an example of such. Participants were told to watch a videotape of a confederate describing certain advertisements, with the objective of remembering the descriptions. Both the confederate and the participants had access to goldfish crackers and animal crackers. Observing a confederate who ate exclusively goldfish crackers increased the likelihood the participant would eat goldfish crackers, and the same was true for animal crackers.

Indirect behavioral priming occurs when the activation of semantic, goal, or affective content makes the behaviors associated with that content more accessible and, hence, more likely to be executed (Janiszewski & Wyer, 2014, p. 103). For example, Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996) discovered that participants primed with rudeness (or politeness) were more (or less) willing to interrupt an experimenter on a subsequent occasion. As in the case of indirect affective priming effects, corresponding behavioral effects are closely related to goal pursuit. To illustrate, words representing thirst-related behaviors (e.g., water, soda, and bottle) became more accessible when people were thirsty (i.e., had a highly active goal to quench their thirst) (Aarts, Dijksterhuis, & De Vries, 2001).

In addition to physical performance, behavioral priming can also relate to cognitive acts; procedural knowledge (i.e., knowledge about how to do things) can be primed. Research on behavioral mindsets provide illustrative examples of procedural priming (see Shen & Wyer, 2010; Wyer, Shen, & Xu, 2013). To conclude, as the above discussion has shown, content priming involves distinct and often overlapping ways of creating priming effects. Subsequent responses, in turn, can be manifested in a variety of ways. In the current thesis, the focus is the indirect effects of status motivational goal priming, which are expected to occur in the form of behavioral and affective responses.

2.3.3 Effects of activating status motives on prosocial consumption