From Primed Concepts to Action: A Meta-Analysis of the Behavioral Effects of Incidentally Presented Words

Evan Weingarten, Qijia Chen, Maxwell McAdams, Jessica Yi, Justin Hepler, Dolores Albarracin · Psychological Bulletin · 2016 · social-psychology · 10.1037/bul0000030 · record weingarten2016-priming-meta-analysis
tag layer · index · concepts · authors · עברית

Where this record's text came from. faceted 2026-08 by reading the locally held text (xml); every evidence string verified as an exact substring of that text before merging. Replication status is coded contested because the paper is explicitly framed around the behavioural-priming replication dispute (documented failures to replicate versus this pooled positive estimate) and it argues the failures are uninformative rather than settling the question. The paper also carries a secondary null-result claim (no moderation by expectancy or by any methodological parameter); claim type records the primary shape, which is the existence and size of the effect. TEXT PROVENANCE, 2026-08-15: the text now staged for this record was re-fetched from the PMC article page (PMC5783538) on 2026-08-14, 13,748 words. IT IS NOT THE COPY THE TAGS WERE READ FROM. Of the 33 evidence strings on this record, 17 were located verbatim in it and carry anchors; 16 were not, and remain unanchored because the copy they were read from is not held. The 16 that do not resolve are statistics quotes carrying the typeset article's punctuation and table references; they were read from the XML copy named in the note above, which is not on this machine. The comparison covers quoted passages only: it says nothing about the passages we did not quote from. 2026-08-17 schema-0.3 pass: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node. Update, 15 September 2026: EXCEPTION, measured with the merge gate's own predicate (Paper.locate): 1 quote(s) on this record are not found as one exact string in the current staged text - content_tags.statistics[19].evidence. The sentence above does not hold for them as written. Where a row records why - the quote is grounded in another copy of the paper, joins two passages with an ellipsis, or differs from the staged text by extraction noise - that note stays on the row. Update, 18 September 2026: the counts above are out of date - today all 50 of this record's quotes are in the staged text and anchored.

This record’s own method is meta-analysis, and the tags below follow from that. A review’s findings, quantities and statistics are things stated IN this paper, and some of them report results obtained elsewhere. No tag on this page names a different author. Measured across every review in this corpus, 81% of a review’s tags carry no citation at all — most of them are the review speaking. The corpus does not adjudicate the rest: read an unmarked tag as a claim this paper makes, not necessarily one it made first.

How to read this page. The article itself is not reproduced here — this paper is not cleared for redistribution, so what follows is the tag layer alone. The evidence sentences are withheld with the article. The table at the foot lists every tag the record carries; each row names the facet it belongs to, and the whose words column says whether the tag records the paper's own wording or the tagger's sentence about the paper. Every tag links to each other paper in the corpus carrying it. The machine-readable edition of the same thing is the TEI file beside this one, where the tags live in standOff, and the article is at its publisher via the link below. When we have changed our mind. Some entries in the table begin with a word in capitals and the reason for it. EVIDENCE CORRECTED — the finding still stands, but we had quoted the wrong sentence from the paper, and the quotation has been replaced with the right one. RETRACTED — the entry itself was wrong; it stays on the page, marked, with the reason, rather than being deleted. WITHDRAWN AND REPLACED — the entry was wrong, and a corrected version of it appears in the entries below. Each mark carries its own reason, in brackets, because the reasons differ from one entry to the next. An entry we have WITHDRAWN is removed from this page and kept in the record, with its reason. A line reading Audit and a date is a later re-reading of the entry against its whole sentence: DOUBTFUL means it was kept, and the reason says what is loose about it. Quotation marks inside the tagger's sentence. Where a tag is the tagger's own sentence, a phrase in quotation marks inside it is borrowed from the paper — the tagger's wording around it is not. The paper's own sentence is the evidence quote for that row; on this page it is withheld with the article, and the article is at its publisher. Nothing inside quotation marks anywhere on this page is ours: if it is quoted, it is the paper's. Whose words a concept carries. A concept entry records a term the paper itself uses, so the term, the sense given for it, and its evidence are the paper's own words, quoted where the paper fixes them. This is the opposite of a sense entry in the tag table, which is the tagger's sentence about how the paper uses a term. Where a concept entry could not be grounded in the paper's words, the entry says so on its own row.

Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
sample-size 5 fields · meta-analysis 4 fields · behavior 4 fields · publication bias 4 fields · null-hypothesis 3 fields · standard-deviation 3 fields · and 5 more →

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 8 concept tags on this paper, 7 are grounded in a quoted sentence. 5 carry the tagger's gloss of what the term means in this paper, which is not something the article can license.

behavioral priming meta-analysis incidental priming perception-behavior goal activation expectancy priming effects publication bias effect size incidentally moderator prime behavior goal chi-square confidence-interval confidence intervals correlation degrees-of-freedom degrees of freedom effect-size effect sizes hypothesis-testing mean mean of median null-hypothesis null hypothesis odds-ratio odds ratios p-value p-values regression regression model sample-size sample size standard-deviation standard deviations standard-error standard errors statistical-power statistical power statistical-significance statistically significant t-test t-tests variance

Legend

relation to other work	`claim_relations`	how this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies
claim type	`claim_type`	the shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
concept edge	`concept_edges`	an asserted relation between two concepts, with the sentence asserting it
concept	`concepts`	an idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
content tag	`content_tags`	a finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper
control	`controls`	an experiment run to eliminate a rival explanation
limitation	`limitations`	what the paper says its evidence cannot support
method	`method`	how the paper produced its evidence
phenomenon	`phenomenon`	the effect or regularity under study
sense	`senses`	a distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it

The paper

The full text is not reproduced here. This article is not cleared for redistribution, so the page carries the tag layer only. Its evidence sentences are withheld; the grounding status remains with each tag, and the article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000030. The reading view exists for the papers whose licence permits it.

Every tag on this page

claim_relations 4 · claim_type 1 · concept_edges 2 · concepts 7 · content_tags 19 · controls 1 · limitations 4 · method 1 · phenomenon 1 · senses 5

Relations on this page carry a quotation for the claim. Where a relation was separately evidenced — and so tested against the vocabulary for its type — the row says so; none of 2 relations here carry that mark. The rest are the tagger’s reading of the sentence quoted beside them.

This record holds no mechanisms. A layer is empty when the tagger recorded nothing in it — which is not the same as the paper having nothing to record.

facet	tag	field	conf.	whose words
claim_type	existence Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_type`		the paper's words
phenomenon	behavioral (conceptual) priming Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`phenomenon`		the paper's words
method	meta-analysis Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: meta-analysis	`method`		the paper's words
limitations	Meta-analysis is correlational, so the moderator relations reported cannot support causal inference. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[0]`		the tagger's words
limitations	Only word primes directly related to the measured behaviour were included. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[1]`		the tagger's words
limitations	Results may not generalise to other prime types (pictures, body poses) or to primes whose link to the outcome is less direct. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[2]`		the tagger's words
limitations	The null moderation findings hold only within the range of parameter values actually observed in the sampled studies. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[3]`		the tagger's words
controls	the meta-analysis re-run selecting a SINGLE effect per study instead of all of them - the paper reports that it reached the same conclusions and does not show the results Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: dependence between effect sizes drawn from the same study, which inflates precision and can shift a pooled estimate · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held	`controls[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
concepts	behavioral priming Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: behavioral priming	`concepts[0]`		the paper's words
concepts	meta-analysis Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: meta-analysis	`concepts[1]`		the paper's words
concepts	perception-behavior Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: perception-behavior	`concepts[3]`	0.95	the paper's words
concepts	goal activation Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: goal activation	`concepts[4]`	0.95	the paper's words
concepts	expectancy Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: expectancy	`concepts[5]`	0.95	the paper's words
concepts	priming effects Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: priming effects	`concepts[6]`	0.95	the paper's words
concepts	publication bias Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: publication bias	`concepts[7]`	0.95	the paper's words
senses	behavioral priming, OPERATIONALLY - and the inclusion criteria are the definition: word primes, INCIDENTALLY presented, a NON-OPPOSITE control group, and a BEHAVIOURAL dependent variable. Each clause excludes something. `Incidentally` rules out instruction; `behavioral dependent variable` rules out the judgement studies that most of this corpus's priming records use; and `non-opposite control` quietly excludes designs whose control condition primes the contrary concept, which would double the apparent effect Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[0]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	the effect, as a NUMBER rather than as an existence claim: d(FE) = 0.332, d(RE) = 0.352 across 352 effect sizes from 133 studies. `Small` is the paper's own word for it. The corpus holds dozens of records asserting that priming happens; this is the one that says HOW MUCH, and the size is what most of the surrounding controversy is actually about Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[1]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	goal activation versus perception-behavior, ADJUDICATED WITHOUT A WINNER BEING DECLARED. The finding is an INCREMENT - goal activation `contributes over and above` perception-behavior - not a replacement. Two mechanisms this corpus has been collecting from separate papers, measured against each other for the first time, and the answer is both Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[2]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	A MODERATOR NULL REPORTED IN THE ABSTRACT - expectancy, the perceived probability of achieving the goal, did not moderate priming. It was predicted to matter by two literatures that disagree about the DIRECTION (Forster: high expectancy strengthens pursuit; Locke & Latham: difficult goals intensify effort), so a null defeats both. A meta-analysis that puts its non-finding in the abstract alongside its finding Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[3]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	the ideomotor inheritance, with the awkward part named: the perception-behavior account follows James's ideomotor model `albeit without the conscious (ideo) component from James`. A mechanism borrowed from a nineteenth-century theory of voluntary action, with the consciousness that gave it its name removed - stated in the review's own parenthesis rather than dug out by a critic Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[4]`	0.95	the tagger's words
claim_relations	extends → prior priming meta-analyses (Cameron, Brown-Iannuzzi, & Payne, 2012; DeCoster & Claypool, 2004; Van den Bussche, Van den Noortgate, & Reynvoet, 2009) Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[0]`		the tagger's words
claim_relations	contradicts → Forster et al. (2007) and Locke and Latham (1990) Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[1]`		the tagger's words
claim_relations	extends → DeCoster & Claypool (2004) Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[2]`		the tagger's words
claim_relations	contradicts → Doyen et al. (2012) Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[3]`		the tagger's words
concept_edges	goal activation —contrasted-with→ perception-behavior Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. differs in: WHAT THE PRIME INSTALLS - a goal that pursues an outcome, against a direct perception-to-action potentiation. The meta-analysis finds the goal account adds explanatory work OVER AND ABOVE the perceptual one rather than replacing it, which is why this is contrasted-with and not distinct-from · strength of the relation: 0.9 · note: THE ADJUDICATION. Two mechanisms the corpus has been collecting from separate papers - Bargh2001 for goals, the ideomotor tradition for perception-behavior - weighed against each other over 352 effect sizes. The answer is an increment, not a winner, and the weight says so. also in: goal activation · perception-behavior	`concept_edges[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
concept_edges	expectancy —causes→ priming effects Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. direction on the measure: no-change · strength of the relation: 0.9 · note: A NULL RECORDED AS A DIRECTION, which is what 'no-change' exists for. Two opposed literatures each predicted expectancy would matter - Forster (high expectancy strengthens pursuit) and Locke & Latham (difficult goals intensify effort) - and neither is supported. It is in the abstract, where a null is easiest to leave out. also in: expectancy · priming effects	`concept_edges[1]`	0.95	the tagger's words
content_tags	chi-square Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: chi-square	`content_tags.statistics[1]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	confidence-interval Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: confidence-interval	`content_tags.statistics[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	correlation Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: correlation	`content_tags.statistics[3]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	degrees-of-freedom Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: degrees-of-freedom	`content_tags.statistics[4]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	effect-size Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: effect-size	`content_tags.statistics[5]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	hypothesis-testing Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: hypothesis-testing	`content_tags.statistics[6]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	mean Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: mean	`content_tags.statistics[7]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	median Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: median	`content_tags.statistics[8]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	null-hypothesis Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: null-hypothesis	`content_tags.statistics[9]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	odds-ratio Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: odds-ratio	`content_tags.statistics[10]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	p-value Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: p-value	`content_tags.statistics[11]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	regression Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: regression	`content_tags.statistics[12]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	sample-size Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: sample-size	`content_tags.statistics[13]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	standard-deviation Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: standard-deviation	`content_tags.statistics[14]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	standard-error Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: standard-error	`content_tags.statistics[15]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	statistical-power Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: statistical-power	`content_tags.statistics[16]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	statistical-significance Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: statistical-significance	`content_tags.statistics[17]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	t-test Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: t-test	`content_tags.statistics[18]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	variance Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: variance	`content_tags.statistics[19]`		the tagger's words

Interpretive choices

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