Mind-Boggle Dolly Tong Vancouver Technical Secondary Floor Location : M 222 L

This project is on the effects of 'priming' on the human mind. Priming refers to when subtle triggers influence our behaviour without our awareness of such changes. In this case, I am testing the effects of priming on test scores, and on different level program students.

In Vancouver Technical Secondary (where I'm from), there are three main program types. There is the Regular Program which is mainstream, Flex which is an enriched mini-school environment, and Summit which is a program accelerated a year ahead. After reading "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell, about a psychologist who primed subjects to be more polite, I began to wonder if priming could affect test scores; and ultimately intelligence itself. So, in which case, I began to wonder whether or not Summits were in Summit because they were truly 'smart', or if they were smart because they were in Summit and constantly being primed with the idea that they were.

After priming subjects with ideas of either a 'smart' prime, 'dumb' prime, or no prime (for the control), with scrambled word sentences littered with words of the corresponding priming ideas, I gave all three groups the same logical/IQ testing quiz. I then marked the second test only, and from there, the results I found were quite alone astonishing in its degree.

Then, after finding the effects of such priming on different level program students, I integrated the side-research I found on the human brain and priming, for a conclusion on said the priming and its effects. If I have you intrigued, then drop by 'Mind-Boggle' to find out more about my processes and results!