Sequential Priming

Sequential priming is the general experimental framework underlying many implicit social-cognition measures: a prime is presented, followed after some interval by a target to which the participant responds, and the speed of responding reveals what the prime automatically activated. By varying the prime-target relation (semantic, affective, stereotypic, goal-related) and the stimulus onset asynchrony, researchers can map which associations are activated, how quickly, and whether the activation is automatic or strategic. Short intervals isolate automatic spreading activation that participants cannot control, while longer intervals permit controlled processes. Evaluative priming, affective priming, and stereotype priming are all special cases of this logic, making sequential priming a unifying methodological backbone for studying automatic mental processes in social psychology.