社会心理学中的启动研究:范式与挑战

Priming research in social psychology: Approaches and challenges

启动效应被严格界定为先前刺激对后续无关情境中的行为反应产生的无意识影响,而且启动对象应是某种认知表征或思维过程。启动研究最早源于认知心理学领域,后被用于社会心理学研究中,并逐渐发展出概念启动、心理定势启动和序列启动三大启动范式及诸多新技术。已有研究存在启动术语混淆和实验者效应等内外部效度问题,其中最大的争议为启动研究结果的可重复性问题。未来研究应致力于解决这些问题,并探讨启动的作用机制。

Priming effect is rigorously defined as the effect that the former stimuli unconsciously influence the response in the subsequent irrelevant context, and the objects to prime should belong to cognitive representations or processes, such as concept or mindset. The concept of priming originated in the studies of cognitive psychology, and then Higgins introduced it to the studies of social psychology. There are three common types of experimental techniques of priming research in social psychology： conceptual priming, mindset priming, and sequential priming. Although a plethora of rather amazing findings were produced in the field of priming research, some important challenges about internal and external validity of priming studies should be addressed, such as experimenter effect and confusing the priming with the general experiment manipulation. Among these challenges, the greatest one is the replicability of priming results. Future studies should strive to solve these problems and explore the mechanism of priming.