Discover the science of priming, and how your state affects other aspects of your life.
Read about two powerful studies that analyze the power of priming.
Learn the eight-step Don Bird priming exercise you can practice each morning.
THE POWER OF PRIMING
Do you wake up each morning feeling lethargic, sluggish, overwhelmed or apathetic about work and the day ahead of you?
Is there an obstacle that causes you to start overthinking right when you wake up?
Many people wake up feeling completely drained, and although they want to be focused and successful, they don’t have the mental energy to accomplish their goals.
If this sounds familiar, it’s time for you to discover the power of priming.
Life can be challenging. When we’re tired and down, it can be hard to remember what achievement, success, and fulfillment feel like. But as Don says, “Problems call us to a higher level.” You can turn your life around by facing your problems head-on, with the mindset of a champion.
The positive effects of priming on psychology have been proven again and again. You can learn to change your state of mind by changing your physical state with an effective priming routine. You can learn to use repetition priming to create positive associations and use the law of attraction to get what you want in life.
In this letter, we will answer the question “What is priming?” in detail. You’ll learn the research behind priming psychology, why and how it works, different priming examples, and Don Bird’s own exercises and proven special techniques.
Use the power of priming to feed your body, mind, and soul.
WHAT IS PRIMING?
What is priming and how can you take advantage of its positive effects? One way to define priming is the act of taking time to adjust your thoughts and emotions so you can live your life in your peak state. Priming is most powerful when completed in the morning to set a productive and powerful tone for your day. It’s also useful for mastering your emotions as it gives you a moment to take a breath and control your reaction.
However you define priming, it’s apparent that this practice is not just a fad – it has been proven with science and psychology. It all happens completely within your subconscious, but you can still learn how to use priming to your advantage. You can prime yourself positively or negatively depending on what you allow into your mind. Don’s priming exercise will allow you to filter out more negative stimuli to prime yourself for positive interactions, experiences, and results. When you learn how to set and reset your mood, you’ll prime yourself for success.
PRIMING PSYCHOLOGY
In psychology, priming is a phenomenon in which a person is exposed to a first stimulus, then to a second related stimulus. The first stimulus affects the person’s response to the second – it "primes" their second response.
One example that’s easy to understand is priming with words: If someone is shown the word "sun," they’ll be faster to recognize the word "moon" than if they were shown a completely unrelated word, like "train."
Priming in psychology has been studied for years because it can have major effects on our behavior and habits, often without us even knowing. Psychologists theorize that priming occurs because we store information in our long-term memories in groups, or "schemas." When we see a word or image, the rest of the group to which it belongs is also activated, and the related information is easier to access.
PRIMING EXAMPLES
Priming may have evolved to help us make faster decisions by
associating danger with certain events. But it doesn’t always help us make the best decisions. The following priming examples show that our reactions are "primed" by our moods and experiences – for better or worse.
COLD COFFEE LEADS TO NEGATIVE PERCEPTIONS
In a 2008 study conducted by Yale psychologists, one researcher casually asked the participant to hold their coffee in the elevator on their way to the lab. The team member would then write down some information about the participant before asking for their coffee back. Each participant held the cup of coffee for between 10 and 25 seconds. For half of the participants, the coffee was hot, while the other half held cold cups of coffee. That’s the only difference between the two groups of participants.
Here’s where it gets interesting. In the lab, all participants read the same brief description of a random individual and rated the individual’s personality using a questionnaire.
Participants who held hot coffee rated the person as happier, better-natured, and more generous and social.
Participants who held the cold cup were more likely to say the person was unhappy, irritable, and selfish.
Remember, there was absolutely no difference between the profiles that both groups read. But how they reacted to the descriptions was significantly different. The strangest part? They had no idea they’d been primed.
A SINGLE QUESTION LEADS TO HIGHER TEST SCORES
In another example, Harvard researchers looked at how answering a short questionnaire, which included either a question about their gender or ethnicity, impacted the subsequent math test scores of Asian American women. Those who were asked to identify their ethnicity scored 11% higher than those who were asked to identify their gender and 5% higher than the control group (who didn’t have a question about their gender or ethnicity before the test). Once again, they all took the same test, but that single question made a huge impact on their test scores. This is the power of priming.
NEGATIVE EMOTIONS LEAD TO NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES
You’ve certainly experienced the emotional priming phenomenon yourself, although you probably didn’t know it at the time. Think about an instance when you were angry or frustrated – did you overreact to a small problem? Did everything seem worse because you were still hung up on the event that made you angry? You were feeling the priming effect of your anger, which caused you to react a certain way.
Now think of a moment when you were totally in love and felt alive and awake to the gift of life. Did everything seem easier to deal with? Did you look at those you may not have liked in the past and feel a new sense of appreciation? That was because you were primed by the feeling of love.
The bottom line on priming? Our thoughts, feelings, and emotions can be primed by factors we’re not even aware of, which greatly impacts our performance in other aspects of our lives. When practiced correctly and often, priming can help you cultivate positive emotions and drastically improve the quality of your life.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF PRIMING IN PSYCHOLOGY
Psychologists use many different types of priming when they conduct studies on the subject. Certain priming factors will create different results in an experiment. To better understand priming psychology, let’s look at its various types and the effects they have on the brain.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE PRIMING
This is the most basic principle of priming. It describes how related words and images – those with a "positive" association – are easier to remember than unrelated words or those with a "negative" association. It’s proven that positive priming increases processing speed while negative priming slows it.
ASSOCIATIVE PRIMING
This is a more specific type of positive priming and is also known as "context priming." In priming psychology, it involves the researcher choosing a first word or image that is commonly associated with the second but not directly related. Because they’re directly related, "father" and "son" would not fall into this category, but words like "cat" and "dog" would. They’re often found together but are different animals and therefore not in the same category.
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