Schon erstaunlich, wie stark das Unterbewusstsein voellig unbemerkt Handlungen beeinflussen kann. Nimmt man an einem simplen Grammatik-Test teil, der beispielsweise Saetze mit den Worten einsam, grau, faltig, vergesslich und alt enthaelt, verlaesst man de

He could have created three groups, one of them with a short lecture on examples of priming and the race question, one with only the race question, and a control with no lecture and no race question.

That's an excellent suggestion, and I'd be very interested to hear what the results of such a study were. I don't know if such an experiment has already been done. If so, Gladwell doesn't mention it, except for his unequivocal statement that the priming effect disappears when participants are forewarned. He interviewed several researchers that are on the cutting edge for this sort of work, so I'd expect that to be accurate, but I too would like to see more published detail. Maybe writing him an e-mail would work?

Religion primes people perfectly. What better way than continuously repeating "you're worthless" BUT "you'll be worth everything if you obey God" to brainwash people.

Note: Priming effects can occur when people are conscious of the cues and even conscious of what the researchers are trying to do...I suspect what Gladwell was referring to were instances of nonconscious priming.

In regards to the racial stereotyping effects, I wonder if similar studies have been done in regard to groups classified on the basis of ideology, e.g., atheists. Obviously there are some strong prejudices* against atheists, particularly in the U.S. I wonder what kinds of cognitive performance would be affected... or are we (atheists) immune to such effects?

* "A study at the University of Minnesota this year lends credence to the group's discussion. It found that Americans favor gays and lesbians, recent immigrants and Muslims over atheists in "sharing their vision of American society." Respondents also said they were least accepting of intermarriage with atheists than with any other group." source

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the effect, we cannot consciously prime ourselves to do better at our tasks.

I'm not sure that's entirely true. I'm a musician, and like most musicians, have had to learn how to deal with nervousness and stage fright. I find that the second most powerful antidote for stage fright is to think of people who have expressed a highly positive opinion of my musicianship. Even though I know what I'm doing (i.e. priming myself), it still seems to work. Of course, maybe it works because I think it'll work; the placebo effect is powerful, after all. All the same, it is helpful to me, and that's all that matters in the end.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the number one antidote against stage fright is being really, really well prepared. There is, unfortunately, no substitute for practicing.

He could have created three groups, one of them with a short lecture on examples of priming and the race question, one with only the race question, and a control with no lecture and no race question.

In this setup, I would expect the first group to do as well as the control or even a little bit better (beign able to identify a new example of priming might make them feel smarter and raise their confidence for the test); but it would be good to see real results for this experiment.

The only kind of influence that truly makes us less free is the one that we are not aware of.

That line is SO true! It immediately brought to mind a conversation I had, many years ago, regarding the effect of advertising. I said that "Advertising doesn't affect me." I was challenged to test myself over the following days. Fortunately, I had the sense to accept the challenge and realised that I WAS affected.

An example - I used to be a chocaholic and noticed that I automatically picked Cadbury's (a popular - ie well advertised - UK brand.) With the challenge in mind I realised that I was choosing the most heavily advertised brand & that, almost subconciously, was rating any other brand as inferior whether I'd tried it or not.

Having realised that I can now purchase anything based on my own evaluation of a product rather than simply choosing a brand I've seen advertised. The vast majority of people however are still unaware of the effect advertising has on them. Over the last 40 years I've put "the challenge" to many people & only TWO have taken it up!

You only have to look at any list of the top 20 "food" items purchased in supermarkets (they're published quite often) to realise the effects of advertising - The top 2 items are usually 1 & 2 litre bottles of Coke & scattered throughout the rest of the list are various other sizes of Coke, Diet Coke and Pepsi; then there are assorted varieties of corn chips, potato chips, cheese rings, etc. It's very rare to find a real food item in the list. Talk about obesity to go!!