Many Labs 5: Registered Replication of Förster, Liberman, and Kuschel’s (2008) Study 1

In a test of their global-/local-processing-style model, Förster, Liberman, and Kuschel (2008) found that people assimilate a primed concept (e.g., “aggressive”) into their social judgments after a global prime (e.g., they rate a person as being more aggressive than do people in a no-prime condition) but contrast their judgment away from the primed concept after a local prime (e.g., they rate the person as being less aggressive than do people in a no prime-condition). This effect was not replicated by Reinhard (2015) in the Reproducibility Project: Psychology. However, the authors of the original study noted that the replication could not provide a test of the moderation effect because priming did not occur. They suggested that the primes might have been insufficiently applicable and the scenarios insufficiently ambiguous to produce priming. In the current replication project, we used both Reinhard’s protocol and a revised protocol that was designed to increase the likelihood of priming, to test the original authors’ suggested explanation for why Reinhard did not observe the moderation effect. Teams from nine universities contributed to this project. We first conducted a pilot study ( N = 530) and successfully selected ambiguous scenarios for each site. We then pilot-tested the aggression prime at five different sites ( N = 363) and found that it did not successfully produce priming. In agreement with the first author of the original report, we replaced the prime with a task that successfully primed aggression (hostility) in a pilot study by McCarthy et al. (2018). In the final replication study ( N = 1,460), we did not find moderation by protocol type, and judgment patterns in both protocols were inconsistent with the effects observed in the original study. We discuss these findings and possible explanations.

The effect of competition mind-set on persuasion: mediation role of processing style

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of a competition mind-set on persuasion. Specifically, this research examined the effect of a fit between a competition mind-set and messages on the persuasive effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach Participants were randomly assigned to a condition of 2 (competition: competition mind-set vs control) × 2 (message: concrete feasibility vs abstract desirability) between-subjects design. Findings This research demonstrated that participants in the competition mind-set (vs control) condition expressed the messages as more persuasive and evaluated the product more favorably when they were exposed to concrete feasibility messages. Furthermore, this effect was mediated by a local processing style. Originality/value The present research provides a useful marketing communication strategy. For the effectiveness of messages, concrete feasibility-related merits should be emphasized in competition contexts.