Information to Go: Fluency Enhances the Usability of Primed Information

Michael Häfner , Diederik A. Stapel

We propose that over and above signaling a positive state of affairs, a fluency experience may be interpreted as a cue to the usability of the information at stake. Three experiments demonstrate this effect in a classic social psychological priming paradigm. Specifically, we show that when primed traits are processed fluently, they have effects independent of whether or not these traits are descriptively applicable to a subsequent target description. In Experiment 1, fluency was manipulated by rhyming. In Experiment 2 letter size of the primes was manipulated. Experiment 3 investigated underlying processes and aimed to control for a possible alternative explanation.

Mots clés: processing fluency; priming; hedonic marking; (judged) usability

Domaines: Psychologie et comportements

Michael Häfner, Diederik A. Stapel. Information to Go: Fluency Enhances the Usability of Primed Information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2009, 46 (1), pp.73. ⟨10.1016/j.jesp.2009.10.001⟩. ⟨hal-00741183⟩