Field: Psychology › Social PsychologyType: A method hit a wallArea: social neuroscienceTarget: Implicit priming during fMRIStage: full study
Hypothesis
Implicit primes of social rejection would change brain responses to social stimuli, measured with fMRI.
What failed
With a well-established priming method and a large sample, the study found no evidence that the primes changed brain responses.
Broken assumption
A priming method that works in the lab also works inside an fMRI scanner.
Why
The authors suggest that this priming method may not work inside an fMRI scanner. They do not question the behavioural priming effects.
From the published paper: Powers et al. PLoS ONE, 2013. ↗CC BY