A Stroke of Genius: Priming, Timing and Human Behaviour

This month’s Harvard Business Review highlights new research showing the potential impact of priming – a psychological process where a stimulus predisposes people to react in a certain way.

An experiment by research scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany found that golfers primed to believe that they were using a putter used by a professional golfer were 32% more successful at sinking putts than a control group that was told nothing. Similarly, the primed group estimated that the hole was 9% bigger than the control group of golfers. The golfers who believed they were playing with a professional’s club thought they’d perform better, so they did.

The research echoes similar findings Linstock unearthed as part of a recent academic review for Fidelity’s pension business in the UK. Research shows that exposing people to words associated with the elderly e.g. wrinkles means that they walk much more slowly when leaving the room and have a poorer memory of the room. On the flipside, participants asked to make sentence out of words like lean, fit, active, athletic are much more likely to use the stairs instead of the lift.

But what are the implications for communicators working on behaviour change campaigns? Firstly, priming can and does work. Secondly, techniques used to target the sub-conscious can sometimes be more effective at changing behaviours than the more obvious appeals to reason.

But there still remains a question mark over the longer-term impact of priming techniques. Once the prime is removed, people often return to their original state. Likewise, priming is just one of a number of behavioural influences. To truly affect longer term behaviour, a number of these influencers need to be used together. Researchers, including members of the MINDSPACE team in the Cabinet Office, are working hard to understand these types of affects and apply them in behavioural change campaigns.

While they continue their experiments, I’m just about to give the team a handful of pens used by Einstein.  

Simon Maule

Director

simon@linstockcommunications.com