cognitive priming

• Cognitive priming is based on the idea that memory works through association. It therefore contends that events and media images can stimulate related thoughts in the minds of audience members.
• Huesmann (1998) suggests that ‘cognitive priming’ describes the idea that, through exposure to a repeated number of aggressive acts being rewarded/vicariously reinforced (SLT), we develop a mental framework to make predictions about how aggression will ‘play out’ in the real world.
• •This was demonstrated by Greitemeyer (2006), who found that male participants who’d listened to aggressive songs featuring derogatory comments about women, behaved more aggressively towards a female confederate, compared to those who’d heard gender-neutral lyrics. This suggests that the media may cognitively prime audiences to develop an increasing tolerance and disinhibition towards violence.
• Berkowitz thinks watching violent movies could lead to storing schemas and cognitive scripts which involve aggression EG. the students in the Stanford Prison experiment had never been in a real prison but they may have had a schema based on movies they had seen. EG. Students who play “Grand Theft Auto” might develop a cognitive script for what to do when traffic lights turn amber. This may be different from the way their Grandma drives!