cognitive priming

• What is cognitive priming?

  Violent images provide ready-made scripts about aggression which are stored in memory (Huesmann 1998) and triggered with aggression cues. Process is mostly automatic.
• Huesmann (1998) - AO3 support


  Played song lyrics to males containing aggressively derogatory lyrics about women. Compared with neutral lyrics, participants recalled more negative qualities about women and behaved more aggressively towards a female confederate. This supports the idea that the music acted as a source of cognitive priming.
• Murray (2007) - AO3 support

  Using fMRI brain scans of children, he found that those watching violence had increased activity in brain areas associated with emotion and the storing of personal memories. This research supports the idea that watching violence therefore may lead to cognitive priming (violent scripts that are being stored).
• Limitations of cognitive priming - Pro-social

  Cognitive priming may lead to pro-social rather than anti-social behaviour. Research by Holloway (1977) found that participants who overheard a pro-social message on the radio before participating in a study involving bargaining, were more cooperative than those who did not hear the message. This suggests that cognitive priming can be used for pro-social responses and could be a helpful psychological process. Contradicts the explanation that cognitive priming causes aggressive behaviour
• Limitations of cognitive priming - genetic explanations

  Genetic explanations would disagree that cognitive priming through violent media is the cause of aggression. It may in fact be the MAOA gene (also known as the warrior gene) that is responsible for aggressive behaviour as some variations of this gene lead to lower levels of serotonin and therefore less control over aggressive impulses. This provides an alternative explanation to cognitive priming as the cause of aggressive behaviour.