Priming and Social Categorizational Factors

Abstract

Priming and social categorizational factors are discussed relative to the possibility that individuals may misinterpret some kidnapping incidents as innocuous occurrences. Subjects either were or were not exposed to a prime (a poster requesting information about a genuinely missing child) before entering a study in which they viewed a videotape that contained an ambiguous interaction between an adult and a child. This interaction was one that could potentially have been interpreted as a child-napping. The adult was either male or female. Subjects made a number of judgments about the actions observed in the tape, including responding yes or no to an item that asked if the tape contained an emergency situation. Data analysis indicated that subjects in the prime condition were significantly more likely to conclude that the taped incident did contain an emergency; that this conclusion was significantly more likely when the abductor was male rather than female; and that this conclusion was most likely to occur in the male abductor/prime present condition.