title: Two failures to replicate high-performance-goal priming effects.
abstract: Bargh et al. (2001) reported two experiments in which people were exposed to words related to achievement (e.g., strive, attain) or to neutral words, and then performed a demanding cognitive task. Performance on the task was enhanced after exposure to the achievement related words. Bargh and colleagues concluded that better performance was due to the achievement words having activated a "high-performance goal". Because the paper has been cited well over 1100 times, an attempt to replicate its findings would seem warranted. Two direct replication attempts were performed. Results from the first experiment (n = 98) found no effect of priming, and the means were in the opposite direction from those reported by Bargh and colleagues. The second experiment followed up on the observation by Bargh et al. (2001) that high-performance-goal priming was enhanced by a 5-minute delay between priming and test. Adding such a delay, we still found no evidence for high-performance-goal priming (n = 66). These failures to replicate, along with other recent results, suggest that the literature on goal priming requires some skeptical scrutiny.
authors: Psychology Department, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America.
authors: Christine R
authors: CR
authors: Harris
authors: Noriko
authors: N
authors: Coburn
authors: Doug
authors: D
authors: Rohrer
authors: Harold
authors: H
authors: Pashler
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014825:Vocabulary
references: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2013 Jan;39(1):140-58
references: 22612169
references: J Pers Soc Psychol. 1998 Apr;74(4):865-77
references: 9569649
references: Psychol Rev. 1988 Jul;95(3):385-408
references: 3406246
references: Science. 2006 Nov 17;314(5802):1154-6
references: 17110581
references: Mem Cognit. 2002 Jul;30(5):745-57
references: 12219891
references: Psychol Sci. 2011 Nov;22(11):1359-66
references: 22006061
references: Annu Rev Psychol. 2010;61:467-90
references: 19566422
references: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 1989 May;15(3):378-87
references: 2524543
references: J Pers Soc Psychol. 2001 Dec;81(6):1014-27
references: 11761304
references: Perspect Psychol Sci. 2012 Nov;7(6):531-6
references: 26168109
references: PLoS Med. 2005 Aug;2(8):e124
references: 16060722
references: J Pers Soc Psychol. 1996 Aug;71(2):230-44
references: 8765481
references: Psychol Sci. 2011 Aug;22(8):1011-8
references: 21742933
references: J Exp Psychol. 1971 Oct;90(2):227-34
references: 5134329
references: Psychol Sci. 2008 Mar;19(3):302-8
references: 18315805
references: PLoS Med. 2008 Oct 7;5(10):e201
references: 18844432
references: PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e42510
references: 22952597
references: PLoS One. 2013 Apr 24;8(4):e56515
references: 23637732
references: PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e29081
references: 22279526
references: J Exp Psychol Gen. 2013 May;142(2):301-6
references: 22774789