1,115
Views
113
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Affective priming of semantic categorisation responses

Pages 643-666 | Published online: 09 Sep 2010
 

Abstract

Fazio, Sanbonmatsu Powell, & Kardes, (1986) demonstrated that less time is needed to affectively categorise a target as positive or negative when it is preceded by a prime with the same valence (e.g., summer-honest) compared to when the target is preceded by a prime with a different valence (e.g., cancer-honest). Such effects could be due to spreading of activation within a semantic network and/or to Stroop-like response conflicts. If a spreading of activation mechanism operates in priming tasks, primes should also facilitate nonaffective semantic processing of affectively congruent targets. In Experiment 1, we failed to observe affective priming when participants responded on the basis of whether the target referred to a person or animal. Experiment 2 revealed significant affective priming when participants responded on the basis of the valence of the targets but not when the semantic category of the targets (person or object) was relevant, despite the fact that apart from the task, both conditions were identical. The present results suggest that affective priming in the affective categorisation task is primarily due to the operation of a Stroop-like response conflict mechanism.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.