Social Priming: Money for Nothing?

Can the thought of money make people more conservative? The idea that mere reminders of money can influence people's attitudes and behaviors is a major claim within the field of social priming - the study of how our behavior is unconsciously influenced by seemingly innocuous stimuli. However, social priming has been controversial lately with many high profile failures to replicate the reported effects. Now, psychologists Doug Rohrer, Hal Pashler, and Christine Harris have joined the skeptical fray, in a paper soon to be published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (JEPG) (preprint here). Rohrer et al. report zero evidence for money-priming effects across four large experiments. They conclude that "Although replication failures should be interpreted with caution, the sheer number of so many high-powered replication failures cast doubt on the money priming effects reported..." Each of the four experiments was a replication of one of the experiments in a ...