Priming a sense of security: what goes through people’s minds?

There is a growing literature charting the positive personaland interpersonal effects of security priming. Security primesenhance self- and relationship views, and even evaluationsof outgroups, relative to control primes. We examine howsecurity priming is experienced by individuals and how itseffects differ from those produced by other positive affect andrelationship-related primes. We analyze the written protocolsproduced by individuals in different priming conditions forfrequency of felt security, care, merging, agency, communion,and nostalgia words. Security priming led to thoughts relatedto felt security, positive care, a sense of merging with another,positive emotion, and communion; furthermore, the effectsof security priming could be distinguished from the effects ofpositive affect and other relationship-related primes. We discussseveral directions for future research