Effects of Evaluation: An Example of Robust “Social” Priming

Evaluation serves a fundamental role in human life, allowing us to safely and successfully interact with our world-much of which is in some way social. We review the vast literature in social psychology on the unintentional impact of evaluation on our mental processing, and locate these effects within longstanding and emerging research traditions. We argue that poorly specified critiques of "social" priming threaten to unfairly ostracize robust findings, stunt exciting new investigations into when and how unintentional influences occur (which we review), and are inconsistent with work in cognitive psychology and modern theory on the nature of information processing in the brain. Finally, we argue that full-hearted endorsement of the evaluative priming that we discuss likely cannot peacefully coexist with strong skepticism of all forms of behavior priming, sketching an argument for why the robustness of the former likely compels the existence of some amount of the latter.