Can The Words You Read Change Your Behavior?

And Gretchen's new book, BECAUSE INTERNET, is available:
(Those are affiliate links that give a commission to me or Gretchen, depending on country!)

REFERENCES:

Kay, A. C., Laurin, K., Fitzsimons, G. M., Landau, M. J. (2014). A functional basis for structure-seeking: Exposure to structure promotes willingness to engage in motivated action. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 486–491. doi:10.1037/a0034462

Bargh JA, Chartrand TL. Studying the Mind in the Middle: A Practical Guide to Priming and Automaticity Research. In: Reis H, Judd C, editors. Handbook of Research Methods in Social Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2000.

Zaval, L., Keenan, E., Johnson, E., & Weber, E. (2014). How warm days increase belief in global warming. Nature Climate Change. 4. 10.1038/nclimate2093.

Hoedemaker, R., & Gordon, P. (2014). It Takes Time to Prime: Semantic Priming in the Ocular Lexical Decision Task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40(6), 2179-2197.

Heyman, T., Van Rensbergen, B., Storms, G., Hutchison, K., & De Deyne, S. (2015). The Influence of Working Memory Load on Semantic Priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41(3), 911-920.

McNeill, D. (1985). So you think gestures are nonverbal? Psychological Review, 92(3), 350-371.

Balota, D. A., & Lorch, R. F. (1986). Depth of automatic spreading activation: Mediated priming effects in pronunciation but not in lexical decision. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition, 12, 336 –345. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.12.3.336

de Groot, A. M. (1984). Primed lexical decision: Combined effects of the
proportion of related prime–target pairs and the stimulus– onset asynchrony of prime and target. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental
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10.1080/14640748408402158

Forster, K. (1981). Priming and the effects of sentence and lexical contexts
on naming time: Evidence for autonomous lexical processing. The
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Hutchison, K. A., Balota, D. A., Cortese, M. J., & Watson, J. M. (2008).
Predicting semantic priming at the item level. Quarterly Journal of
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Keefe, D. E., & Neely, J. H. (1990). Semantic priming in the pronunciation
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and word recognition. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

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596X(88)90025-3

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doi:10.1037/0096-3445.106.3.226

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priming? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
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(you can find contact details and social links there too)

[TomScottGo]

Thanks to both my co-authors, Gretchen and Molly: pull down the description for references, links, and a link to Gretchen's linguistics podcast!

[AndyLundell]

"Can the words you read change your behavior?"
Oh sure! Just yesterday I read a sign that said "NO PARKING! TOW AWAY ZONE", so I parked somewhere else.

[zelani]

2:21 I am not a native speaker of English so when you said "jellyfish" I was like "Oh jellyfish also means that? It's weird" and then I realized what you had done there...

[Quasihamster]

Whoever thought "car" and "glue" have nothing to do with each other doesn't know my car...

[iliamanolov]

> Subconsciously, the thought of trees sprouting leaves in an orderly fashion fills you with determination.


Did I just reach a save point?

[adjoint_functor]

I find it hilariously ironic that the failed study you submitted to a teacher was about the effect of mentioning failure in essays on how they were viewed when submitted to teachers.

[Reversinator]

>rake in the lake
>fills you with determination

I see that Tom Scott is a true gamer.

[SuperSmashDolls]

Congratulations, you all are test subjects for Tom Scott's new academic study, "The Priming Effects of Well-Known Videogame References on YouTube Comment Sections".

[callumhardy]

And Yet In the Houses of Parliament Despite the amount of times the Speaker Shouts ORDER they still get absolutely nothing done!

[TheGoodWario]

I'm gonna end my sentences with Jellyfish just to see how people toaster.

[dafoex]

Priming in an interesting thing, because it can exist in certain situations where it's important to minimise it. Asking the witness of a crime "did they wear glasses" could plant a false memory, whereas "describe what their face looked like" wouldn't lead the witness.

[rashkavar]

Well congrats on getting your Masters rigorous enough to avoid becoming part of the replication crisis. Started out with something problematic, but you fixed it on your own - exactly how science should work when dealing with this sort of thing.


And moreover, congrats on having the guts to submit your negative findings. A lot of people who wind up proving their null hypothesis just quietly bury their project and move on. Which sucks - proven null hypotheses are often at least as scientifically useful as the hypothesis being tested.

[LeoOrientis]

If you ever learn a foreign language by immersion, you realize quickly that our understanding of audible language is based at least as much on what we expect to hear, as what we actually hear. A lot of audible language is inaudible, but worked out by our brains anyway.

[kyleolson]

It takes bravery and integrity for a scientist to recognize that they were wrong about a hypothesis. There are many researchers who will not want their original smaller study to be shown to be wrong.

[deathbower]

Stuff to do when hearing a "fact"
1. Look for scientific basis
2. Investigate research methods used
3. Investigate researchers and attempt to identify if there is any intrinsic bias
4. Investigate money behind research and attempt to identify if there is any intrinsic bias
5. Present your conclusions on the presented "fact"
6. Get yelled at on the internet by people who have done less research than you
7. Hear another "fact"

[eastpavilion-er]

"If you hear the words and parts of speech that you jellyfish"
The more I read this sentence the more I laugh.

[Miss_Xhiel]

Jellyfish. You got me. I rewound the video before you did.

[corbinpeacock]

"The thought of leaves sprouting from a tree fills you with determination"

❤️Save Quit

[columbusmyhw]

Everyone else: "Untitled Goose!"
Me: "Ah thanks for reminding me to deal with the six-fingered guy"

[ensnep]

0:17 Subconsciously, the thought of trees sprouting leaves in an orderly fashion fills you with DETERMINATION.

Your HP was fully restored