When priming was mentioned this week on one of the podcasts I listen to regularly, I took it as a sign that now is the perfect opportunity to write a blog post about priming in movies and TV. The podcast mentioned an example from the movie “The Exorcist”, which I have not seen, and might never see (horror movies aren’t really my thing but maybe check again in a couple weeks? Quarantine is doing strange things to all of us). The podcast guest, Jason Mantzoukas, said that part of the genius of the movie is that it “primes” the audience to be frightened of supernatural elements that occur later by first showing gory images that are not supernatural, but still quite graphic. While Mantzoukas likely meant this in a more colloquial way, priming is a real social psychological phenomenon that we can examine more closely in the context of media.
Priming is a process by which certain schemas can be activated in an individual’s memory. This can be done consciously or unconsciously, and can be actively planned, as in an experimental context, or occur accidentally, without conscious effort. A schema is a generalization that humans develop about categories of objects, places, events, and people. Schemas help us navigate the complexities of our world by breaking them into easier, larger chunks. Priming, then, allows others to (consciously or unconsciously) take advantage of this useful capacity by bringing certain things online in our brains, which can impact how we behave. In an experimental context, this could mean playing a certain kind of music for shoppers in a grocery store to see how that affects their buying habits, for example. In everyday life, priming can affect how we feel about certain things. Priming anxieties occur when we worry about something because we have been primed to be concerned about it. For example, psychology students may become concerned that they have a wide range of disorders or psychological issues, when in reality they have just been primed to think so because the information they are learning about has activated certain schemas in their brains.
In Mantzoukas’ example, I’m not sure if it really lines up with the textbook definition. It doesn’t really make sense that showing someone one gory image would prepare them to see another. Maybe this is closer to desensitization in that the audience would come to expect the frightening images over the course of the movie and they would lose some of their effect. However, horror movies could likely use priming as a way to prepare the audience to be frightened or intensify the experience, maybe by scaring them even before they enter the theater. In any case, though, the individual would likely already be expecting to be scared going into the movie, because they know it is designed to frighten them.
socially psyched 