Priming and Behavioural Choice (Behavioural Economics)

What is priming?

Our behaviour by cues that work subconsciously and prime us to behave / choose in certain ways.

Examples of priming to change behaviour:

• Playing of certain types of music in a shopping mall / priming through aroma
• Subliminal cues in films / TV adverts, subliminal cues before an interview
• Students signing an honor-code at university before they hand in assignments
• Showing pictures of older citizens may cause people to walk more slowly
• When a picture of a woman appeared on a math test, female students were reminded to recall their gender and performed worse on the test (Shih et al 1999)