EFFECTS OF TYPE AND RELEVANCE OF PRIMES AND DELAY BETWEEN PRIMING ANDRATINGS ON ATTRACTIVENESS

This study was an attempt to generalize a previous finding on prime ef fects on perceived attractiveness. After the 80 college men were shown a list of 10 primes and then asked to read a passage about a fictitio us female named Victoria, they rated her attractiveness on 5 scales. P rimes were either positive or negative. Half of the primes were releva nt to attractiveness and half were nor. Some subjects rated Victoria r ight after being primed while others waited 5 min. between priming and rating. A 2 (prime type)x 2 (relevance oi prime) x 2 (time) factorial analysis of variance gave a significant interaction between prime typ e and relevance. Subjects exposed to negative relevant primes rated Vi ctoria more attractive than subjects exposed ro negative irrelevant pr imes. An inhibitory effect of the primes, given the long length of the ir exposure, seemed to be the basis for these findings.