Discussion
The results of this study partially support the first hypothesis: that there would be greater priming effects for negatively valanced words in the meaning judgement task than in the letter search task. Negatively valanced words did have stronger priming effects than positively valenced words. In contrast to this hypothesis, while priming effect was larger for the meaning task than the lettersearch task, this difference was not significant. The second hypothesis was that priming would be stronger for negative words for participants who scored high on anxiety and priming would be stronger for positive words for people who scored high on happiness This hypothesis was not supported as there was no significant difference in anxiety and …show more content…
The greater priming effects for negatively valenced words are in support of the findings from Mathews et al. (1995), who concluded that negatively valenced words are primed faster than positively valenced words. This can be explained by Pratto and John’s (1991) theory of automatic vigilance which posits that individuals react faster to negatively stimuli to potentially protect themselves from external threats. However, letter search task these results were not significant. This is in contrast with Maxfield (1997) which suggests that priming effect should be partially diminished in the lettersearch task. This is due to lack of semantic activation as it is not necessary to know the meaning of the word to perform the lettersearch task (Maxfield, 1997). The reason the result of this study were not significant in relation to priming effect between the meaning judgment task and the letter search task may be due to the small number of participants involved in the study. It may be plausible to assume that had there been more participant the results would have been significant as the priming effect for the lettersearch task was less than the meaning judgement …show more content…
As stated the study indicates that negatively valenced words are primed faster than positively valenced words. This supports the theory that we respond faster to negative stimuli to potentially protect ourselves from external threats. This also has practical implications toward negative stimuli in the outside world as well as in priming. The results from the study also indicate no significant difference for priming effects across task conditions. This implies support for the theory by Bodner and Stalinski (2008) which implies that masked repetition priming is automatic and therefore the priming effects do not diminish under cognitive load conditions. Further research is necessary to validate the results of this study. future research should focus on the effect of anxiety and happiness on priming effects. also, on the effect of negatively valenced words and cognitive load on the priming
The results of this study partially support the first hypothesis: that there would be greater priming effects for negatively valanced words in the meaning judgement task than in the letter search task. Negatively valanced words did have stronger priming effects than positively valenced words. In contrast to this hypothesis, while priming effect was larger for the meaning task than the lettersearch task, this difference was not significant. The second hypothesis was that priming would be stronger for negative words for participants who scored high on anxiety and priming would be stronger for positive words for people who scored high on happiness This hypothesis was not supported as there was no significant difference in anxiety and …show more content…
The greater priming effects for negatively valenced words are in support of the findings from Mathews et al. (1995), who concluded that negatively valenced words are primed faster than positively valenced words. This can be explained by Pratto and John’s (1991) theory of automatic vigilance which posits that individuals react faster to negatively stimuli to potentially protect themselves from external threats. However, letter search task these results were not significant. This is in contrast with Maxfield (1997) which suggests that priming effect should be partially diminished in the lettersearch task. This is due to lack of semantic activation as it is not necessary to know the meaning of the word to perform the lettersearch task (Maxfield, 1997). The reason the result of this study were not significant in relation to priming effect between the meaning judgment task and the letter search task may be due to the small number of participants involved in the study. It may be plausible to assume that had there been more participant the results would have been significant as the priming effect for the lettersearch task was less than the meaning judgement …show more content…
As stated the study indicates that negatively valenced words are primed faster than positively valenced words. This supports the theory that we respond faster to negative stimuli to potentially protect ourselves from external threats. This also has practical implications toward negative stimuli in the outside world as well as in priming. The results from the study also indicate no significant difference for priming effects across task conditions. This implies support for the theory by Bodner and Stalinski (2008) which implies that masked repetition priming is automatic and therefore the priming effects do not diminish under cognitive load conditions. Further research is necessary to validate the results of this study. future research should focus on the effect of anxiety and happiness on priming effects. also, on the effect of negatively valenced words and cognitive load on the priming