Accessibility as input: The use of construct accessibility as information to guide behavior

Priming typically increases behavioral enactments of primed constructs. The current work explored a novel mechanism for the behavioral effects of priming, termed the “accessibility as input” account. In two experiments, participants were nonconsciously primed and then completed anagrams until they judged themselves to have reached a particular state. Two different states, or stop rules, were specified, and were matched to the primed constructs such that the combination either implied that the state had been met (e.g., “slow” prime and “tired” stop rule) or had not been met (e.g., “fast” prime and “tired” stop rule). The priming and stop rule manipulations interacted to determine persistence on the anagram task. The results demonstrate that the heightened accessibility resulting from priming can be used as information about one’s current state in relation to situational requirements and, hence, can produce varying, contextually-dependent behavior.