Nonconscious activation of behavioral goals, a methodologically refined replication

In four of the five experiments presented by Bargh and colleagues, achievement-related words to prime the goal of doing well subsequently led to better achievement. However, as the experiments used verbs for achievement words and nouns as neutral words, the results might be due to confounding conditions. To avoid this problem, we conducted an online experiment with a 2 (achievement-priming: achievement words, neutral words) x 2 (word class: verbs, nouns) factorial design. 89 men and 123 women whose mean age was 25.8 yr. (SD = 7.1), who were recruited via a student e-mail list of the university and former participants in other experiments, took part. Barge, et al.'s findings that the achievement content is responsible for the priming effect were confirmed. Moderator effects of task difficulty and achievement motivation are discussed.