Priming is a term from psychology that deals with how quickly you show certain behaviors following a cue you received earlier. It is actually very similar to the Pavlov theory where the dog starts drooling after hearing a bell because it knows food will come. In the case of priming, it's actually about how quickly you would then start drooling.
What is priming?
In priming, then, you respond to certain information from your environment. It's about the connections you make to certain cues in your long-term memory, and through those connections you can change your behavior.
For example, this is why you may suddenly act differently when you become a father or mother, because somewhere in your long-term memory you make the connection that a parent displays certain behaviors. Maybe you suddenly stop swearing 😊.
So priming is influencing your beliefs in your long-term memory that have a lot of influence on your behavior. Parents actually spend your entire childhood priming you to become a good adult person. That "good adult person" is then their version of it. This does not have to be your version of a "good adult person."
The great thing is, when you are aware of this. You can also prime yourself to show certain behaviors and you can prime other people very unconsciously.
Can you primp other people?
It is certainly possible to primp other people. This is something I am working on with hypnosis, for example, but it can be even more subtle.
For example, students were studied how they would react if the words "being old" stood out. To do this, they had to look at a series of words and indicate which words or combinations did not belong among them. So this was "beïng old." One group of students was confronted with this word and the other word was not. The group that was confronted with this word then walked out of the lab more slowly than the group that did not have to identify "beïng old"[1].
So this word primed them on being old, and as a result they started acting "older," because older people tend to move slower.
This priming can happen consciously and unconsciously allowing you to demonstrate all kinds of "different" behaviors.
It's not just seeing words that creates different behavior through priming. In a study in which the aforementioned research was repeated, it was also found that the behavior of the researchers affected the behavior of the participants. The participants started mimicking the researchers. The researchers did everything faster if they thought the subjects were not primed and slower if they thought the subjects were primed. This again affected the subjects' behavior[2].
So what you say and do can certainly signal other people to change their behavior.
You've probably also heard that television hypnotizes you, and research shows that television can indeed prim other people. In fact, depending on what kind of programs you watch, you can gain a certain belief about how social reality is[3]. So how a society works, how you treat family, how you are with friends and even how you treat enemies.
For example, reading information that is negative, such as "on sunny days you are grumpier than on cloudy days," can actually cause you to become more aggressive[4].
As a hypnotist, you also spend a lot of time priming people.
How do you prime yourself?
Language and what you do is incredibly important in priming, and so priming can be done consciously. You can use language in yet another way to primp yourself. For example, you can read something or write something down consciously.
Primen can help you improve your performance throughout the day.
Sports in the morning, for better sports in the afternoon
This is a handy one for the athletes among us who have games in the afternoon.
In rugby players, for example, it was studied whether a workout in the morning improved their performance in the afternoon. This was the case[5]. So to increase the chances of winning, it was also recommended to have another workout in the morning to improve performance during the match in the afternoon.
So in this case, it's about a physical performance for which you were primed. The exercises of the morning, especially if they were relevant to the game, helped the players in the afternoon to be faster and more technical.
So doing something in the morning has an effect for the whole day (or at least the whole working day).
Keep a prime book
For example, many people keep a journal at the end of the day to just sort of summarize their doing and thinking things. What you can also do is keep a prime book.
In that book, you can write down a particular intention, such as:
Today I am social.
Today I have focus on my work.
Today I eat healthy.
Today I move whenever possible.
By writing down intentions like these, you can consciously and onebconsciously do more with them the rest of the day, making you more social, making healthier choices and having a better focus at work, for example.
Surround yourself with prime messages
As mentioned, what you do, say, hear and read is something you can primp. When you have a particular goal you can primp yourself to achieve that goal or take the actions to achieve those goals.
Say you once wrote down an intention at the beginning of the day. Then you can stick that on your mirror in the bathroom, for example, so that you read that intention again in the morning and primed yourself as a result.
Are you into healthy eating? If so, you can also stick a primer on your refrigerator.
You can also use self-hypnosis in the morning and repeating a hypnotic suggestion you use to primed yourself, like a mantra.
"Today I do ....."
At work, you can set a prime message on your desktop background that you see when you turn on your PC, or set up a picture frame with an inspirational message.
Listen to inspiring podcasts (like mine)
Another fun way to primp yourself is by listening to podcasts. There are podcasts to listen to about anything and everything, lifestyle, health, science, politics, business, whatever you find interesting there is a podcast for it.
Then, if you find yourself in a traffic jam on the way to work, you can actually prim yourself to get a good mindset for the day with the podcast instead of arriving in a plague mood. Especially while driving, you can naturally enter a hypnotic state that allows you to take everything in well.
For example, you can listen to my podcast 😉.
So priming is something you can experience consciously and unconsciously. Other people's behavior, what you hear, read, see, and do can cause your behavior to be changed.
If you know how hypnosis works, you can prim other people to change their behavior, and self-hypnosis is also great for this purpose.
Want to know if you can hypnotize people and what it feels like to be under hypnosis yourself? Then come to the hypnosis playshop in Wormerveer or Zwolle.
Instead, do you feel the need to learn more immediately to help yourself or others? Then come to a seminar or enroll in one of Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training courses. Ask about online options if that suits you better.
[1] https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/0022-3514.71.2.230
[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029081
[3] https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/24/4/447/1797983
[4] https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.1987.5.2.131
[5] https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ijspp/11/6/article-p763.xml
