Cognitive Priming

• 'priming' refers to a temporary increase in the accessibility of thoughts and ideas
• when people are constantly exposed to violent media, this activates thoughts and ideas about aggression
• these thoughts about violence activate further aggressive thoughts through their associations in memory
• immediately after a violent film or video game the viewer is primed to respond aggressively because a network of memories involving aggression have been retrieved
• Fischer and Greitemeyer (2006) made use of song lyrics for their study. men were played songs containing derogatory lyrics about women and women were played songs containing negative language about men. compared to controls that listened to neutral lyrics both men and women acted more aggressive towards an opposite sex confederate
• Bushman (1998) investigated whether exposure to violent media makes aggressive thoughts more accessible. they showed undergraduate participants 15 minutes of a violent or non-violent film. participants who watched the violent film had faster reaction times to aggressive words than those who had seen non-violent films
• Moriarity and McCabe (1977) found that children who witnessed sportspeople behaving pro-socially actually performed more pro-social acts than those who didn't see the sportspeople acting pro-socially. however, the children didn't imitate behaviours, they just acted in a more pro-social way