Replicability of Social-Cognitive Priming: The Case of Weight as an Embodiment of Importance

Abstract

Several influential research programs in social cognition have suggested that even subtle changes in such perceptual events can have a powerful influence on socially meaningful judgments and behavior. Recent extensions of such social-cognitive priming studies have involved physical experiences, like effects of physical weight on people’s judgments of importance, effects first obtained by Jostmann and colleagues (2009) and later by Chandler and colleagues (2012). In recent years, the field of "social cognitive priming" in general has become doubted, because of several unsuccessful replications, publication bias, and flexibility in reporting. In this paper, the authors report one successful conceptual replication and one successful close replication. The authors discuss implications of replications and further emphasize the importance of replication for studying human behavior and thought.

Keywords: embodiment, priming, replication, weight, importance