Psychology and Aging 1998, Vol. 13, No. 1, 127-137 Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0882-7974/98/$3.00 Age-Related Priming Effects in Social Judgments Thomas M. Hess, Karen A. McGee, Stephen M. Woodburn, and Cheryl A. Bolstad North Carolina State University Two experiments investigated adult age differences in the impact of previously activated (and thus easily accessible) trait-related information on judgments about people. The authors hypothesized that age-related declines in the efficiency of controlled processing mechanisms during adulthood would be associated with increased susceptibility to judgment biases associated with such informa- tion. In each study, different-aged adults made impression judgments about a target, and assimilation of these judgments to trait constructs activated in a previous, unrelated task were examined. Consistent with the authors' hypotheses, older adults were likely to form impressions that were biased toward the primed trait constructs. In contrast, younger adults exhibited greater awareness of the primed information and were more likely to correct for its perceived influence, especially when distinctive contextual cues regarding the source of the primes were available. Effective functioning in social situations is in part dependent on making accurate assessments of others based on available information, such as appearance, behavior, and group member- ship. An interesting finding that has emerged from research on social cognition is that such assessments are not only based on the conscious efforts of the individual in thinking about others but also on unconscious processes associated with the relative accessibility of relevant interpretative structures. The finding that available knowledge structures influence perception and comprehension is certainly not new within the field of cognitive psychology. What is relatively new and interesting, however, is the fact that specific experiences of the individual relating to both the frequency and recency of activation affects the accessi- bility of specific structures, and that heightened accessibility of a specific structure may have unintended influences on subsequent cognitive operations (e.g., Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). For example, research has demonstrated that previous exposure to specific trait or evaluative information can bias people's judg- ments about a target person to be consistent with this informa- tion (e.g., Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977; Srull & Wyer, 1980), a process referred to as assimilation. This appears to occur when accessible information is unintentionally activated by relevant cues in the current context without the perceiver's awareness. It is important to note that the impact of previous exposure is modified by factors such as awareness, concurrent processing demands, and motivation. Thus, for example, if conscious of the Thomas M. Hess, Karen A. McGee, Stephen M. Woodburn, and Cheryl A. Bolstad, Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University. This research was supported by National Institute on Aging Grant AG05552. Experiment 1 is based on Karen A. McGee's master's thesis. We would like to thank Katherine Pollen, Christina McCormick, and Michelle Peach for their assistance during various stages of this project. We also thank Leonard Martin for his consultation regarding the con- struction of stimulus materials for Experiment 2. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Thomas M. Hess, Department of Psychology, Box 7801, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7801. Electronic mail may be sent via Internet to hess@poe.coe.ncsu.edu. previously activated, or primed, information while performing a subsequent task, a person may seek to correct for its influence. This may be done by excluding this information from consider- ation or by biasing judgments in the opposite direction from the primed information, an effect referred to as contrast (e.g., Lombard!, Higgins, & Bargh, 1987; Martin, Seta, & Crelia, 1990; Strack, Schwarz, Bless, Kiibler, & Wanke, 1993). Thus, even though activation of information due to heightened accessi- bility may occur without intent, the impact of the activated information can be brought under the control of the individual. Findings of this type have led Bargh (1994) to emphasize the multidimensional nature of automaticity in understanding such influences in social cognition. Traditionally, automatic and controlled processes were thought to vary simultaneously along four dimensions dealing with awareness, intentionality, control- lability, and efficiency. (Automatic functions tend to be low on the first three dimensions and high on the last.) Bargh argued, however, for the separability of these four dimensions, asserting that most complex social-cognitive tasks consist of a combina- tion of automatic and controlled features. For example, although individuals may be unable to prevent processing of certain types of information (e.g., evaluative content), they can become aware of its influence and attempt to control it. In a similar manner, the activation of automatic processes may be intentional in that certain types of automatic processing only occur within the context of subject-initiated activities (e.g., spontaneous trait in- ferences are more probable when individuals have the goal of forming an impression from a set of behaviors rather than of remembering them; Bassili & Smith, 1986). A central question for the study of aging and social cognition concerns the extent to which automatic and controlled aspects of functioning change with age, resulting in differential suscepti- bility to priming effects. Although automaticity has rarely been studied in terms of the four dimensions suggested by Bargh (1994), research on cognition suggests that many automatic influences on social—cognitive functioning should remain intact across adulthood. Studies of semantic priming and implicit memory (for review, see Howard, 1996), which represent exam- inations of the unconscious influence of previously experienced 127