Effects of priming a bipolar attribute concept on dimension versus concept-specific accessibility of semantic memory.

In Experiment 1, participants received behavioral information about a person that could be interpreted as either honest or unkind. Priming a concept along 1 dimension (e.g., honesty) increased the likelihood of spontaneously describing the target along this dimension (i.e., as honest), regardless of whether the primed concept was directly applicable for interpreting the target's behavior ("honest") or was its bipolar opposite ("dishonest"). Experiment 2 replicated this finding in a different, product domain. It further demonstrated that when information is ambiguous, primed concepts can influence not only the dimension along which the target is described but also the value it is assigned along this dimension. The effect of priming in both experiments was reflected in participants' overall evaluations of the targets as well as in their spontaneous descriptions of it. Results were consistent with the assumption that bipolar attributes are associatively linked in memory but are stored as separate concepts rather than as values along a bipolar continuum.