Priming Hallelujah or Psychology for Fun and Profit

The term "priming" is a technical one in behavioural and cognitive studies in psychology as well as marketing and advertising research. 

See for a retrospective account/reflection, John Bargh's “What Have We Been Priming All These Years? On the Development, Mechanisms, and Ecology of Nonconscious Social Behavior,” European Journal of Social Psychology, 36 (2006):  147-168.

The researcher noted above, Yale's John Bargh, has faced a number of obstacles, not least our own cherished sense that such things cannot, could not, dare not be true.  Even a recent article in the Chronicle, so beloved (by mid-range academics) for its solidly middle of the academy perspective on academia, suggests this in the title (subtitle really, but the rhetoric of that also plays on the technique in question) of an article on his work published 20 January 2013: 

Power of Suggestion

The amazing influence of unconscious cues is among the most fascinating discoveries of our time­—that is, if it's true

 

See the full Chronicle text here. 

Or see this nice quiet unobtrusive little report on his work in the New York Times from a few years back here.

Or this rather less benign and more recent reflection vis-a-vis the economy here.


Priming also applies, although Bargh and fellow psychologists would never note this, if some brave marketing experts might,  to what Adorno characterizes as the “ubiquity” standard as the standardizing impetus for conditioning of all kinds, especially qua “covert priming.”

Excerpt from Babich, The Hallelujah Effect (Sussex: Ashgate, 2013).