Priming in Concert: Assimilation and Contrast with Multiple Aefective and Gender Primes

The present research investigated the influence ot multiple sequential primes on social categorization processes. Study 1 examined an evaluative decision task in which targets were preceded and succeeded by two primes. As expected, the temporally closest forward primes had assimilative effects on target processing. Moreover, if the temporally closest forward prime and the target were congruent, backward affective primes had assimilative effects; if the temporally closest forward prime and the target were incongruent, the distal forward primes had contrastive effects. Study 2 found similar effects in a gender priming task. In a reanalysis of Gawronski. Deutsch, and Seidel (2005), Study 3 partly replicated Studies 1 and 2 with more complex and varied stimuli. The results indicate that people can flexibly extract and disentangle brief snapshots from a continuous stream of environmental stimulation.