Priming: How Your Mind Is Manipulated

Imagine you’re sitting in a hallway before an important university exam, waiting for the doors to open. Suddenly, someone sits next to you and starts a casual conversation. Maybe they talk about how great it is to be a university professor, doing research and helping students become professionals. Or maybe they chat about how fun it is to be a soccer fan—blowing horns, throwing bottles from the stands, drinking beer, and getting into fights after the game.

This conversation lasts just three minutes, then the person leaves. Fifteen or thirty minutes later, your exam begins. Do you think that brief chat could affect your exam results? Research shows it absolutely can.

In a psychological experiment, students were randomly split into two groups. One group was asked to think about being a university professor, the other about being a soccer fan. The first group answered an average of 56% of exam questions correctly, while the second group managed only 43%. That’s the difference between passing and failing.

This is how priming works—one of the most fascinating ways your mind can be manipulated.

What Is Priming and How Does It Work?

In the early 20th century, Czech national soccer team goalkeeper František Plánička was famous for saving penalty kicks, even from the best strikers. Whenever a penalty was called, he would dramatically throw his cap into one corner of the goal before taking his position. Nine times out of ten, the opposing player would shoot toward the corner where the cap landed.

From a psychological perspective, this is a classic example of priming.

By the late 20th century, psychologists discovered that when two events happen in sequence, your impression of the first event strongly influences your reaction to the second—even if the two events are logically unrelated.

One famous priming experiment asked people to write down the last two digits of their passport number or spin a roulette wheel and record the number. Then, they were shown a product (like a toy or an appliance) and asked to estimate its price in a supermarket. It turned out that the number from the first part of the experiment often influenced the price guess. If someone got 14, they’d say the teddy bear should cost $14; if they got 8, they’d guess $8. There’s no logic to this—just the influence of prior experience.

Returning to the exam example: students primed to think about professors were nudged toward intellectual, problem-solving thoughts, which set them up for academic success. Those primed to think about soccer fans were nudged toward less intellectual, more careless attitudes, which affected their performance.

Conscious and Unconscious Priming

Priming can be conscious or unconscious. In other words, you might be aware of it, or not at all. You can influence people’s choices by preparing them with rational arguments—something lawyers often do, gradually leading judges or juries to a desired opinion. The famous Russian lawyer Plevako was a master of this. For example, when a shopkeeper was on trial for not closing her store on time before a religious holiday, Plevako arrived late to court. When the judge commented, he asked everyone for the time, and everyone’s watches showed something different. He concluded, “If we, responsible and educated people, can’t set our watches correctly, how can we convict a simple shopkeeper for the same?”

Unconscious priming happens when a person isn’t aware of being influenced. Few soccer players facing Plánička would have believed his thrown cap was affecting their decisions. Unconscious priming can be triggered by certain words or images that create associations in the mind of the target.

Priming Influences Choices

Imagine two projects: one guarantees an 80% chance of success, the other has a 20% risk of failure. Which would you choose to invest in or work for? If you’re not a mathematician, you’ll probably pick the first. But both projects are identical—80% chance of success and 20% chance of failure. The difference is in the wording: “success” sounds positive, while “risk” and “failure” sound negative. That’s priming at work.

Priming Influences Intelligence

As mentioned earlier, a simple conversation about professors or soccer fans could boost or lower students’ problem-solving abilities. Here’s an even harsher experiment: At a university, students from disadvantaged backgrounds (such as African Americans, ex-convicts, or former drug addicts) were split into two groups. One group took written exams as usual. The other group, before the exam, was reminded of their background (“You’re from Harlem, right?” or “You’ve been in prison before, correct?”). The second group performed much worse, regardless of the subject. Reminding them of their troubled past instantly shifted their focus to their problems and weaknesses, undermining their confidence and ability to solve problems.

Priming Influences Aggression

In another experiment, participants first played a game where they drew cards with different words and placed them on a board. In the second part, they were asked to give their opinion about a politician. Half the participants had cards with emotional, aggressive words (“killer,” “war”), while the other half had neutral words (“weather,” “move”). Those exposed to aggressive words gave much harsher and more judgmental opinions, even though the game had nothing to do with politics.

Priming Influences Well-Being

In another study, people were asked to complete sentences with missing words for 15 minutes. One group got sentences with words related to old age (“elderly,” “cane,” “frail,” “senior”), while the other group had neutral words. For example, the first group completed “The old man crosses the street at the pedestrian ______,” while the second group got “The man crosses the street at the pedestrian ______.” Afterward, the first group walked down the hallway much more slowly than the second group, even though they had moved at the same speed before the experiment.

Priming Influences Interests

Another study showed that if someone watches two videos in a row—a TV program about economics and a presidential candidate’s speech—they’ll pay more attention to the economic aspects of the politician’s speech. If the economics program is replaced with a crime show, the viewer focuses more on law and order. If it’s a film about terrorism, the viewer pays more attention to national security. Similarly, if you talk to someone about blue butterflies or red apples before showing them a painting, they’ll notice more blue or red elements, respectively.

How to Protect Yourself from Priming

First, it’s important to understand that priming can’t make you do something unnatural. It can’t make you eat a nail or change your sexual orientation. Priming only nudges you toward one choice or another when both options are natural and acceptable to you—like buying flowers or chocolate, interrupting a colleague or waiting, walking fast or slow, vacationing in Paris or London.

If you want to sell more French wine, play French music in the store. If you want to sell more Italian wine, play Italian songs. There’s no need to be overly afraid of priming. But if you suspect you’re being influenced and want to protect yourself, remember: the key is awareness and thoughtful consideration.

If you think someone is manipulating you through priming, do this simple thing: delay your decision for a while. Then, reconsider your options from scratch, focusing only on the issue at hand and ignoring outside influences. It’s a simple recipe—but it really works.