Dissolving the arbitrary boundary between social and non-social priming has important implications for debates about the reality of social priming.
Specifically, it forces anyone who denies the reality of social priming writ large to deny the reality of priming in general, including so-called “non-social” priming, because there is no natural boundary between the two classes of phenomena.
By the same token, any skeptic who wishes to accept the reality of “non-social” priming cannot deny the reality of “social priming” in general, and must instead take the weaker position of denying the reality of a specific subset of findings. Such a skeptic could argue that particular experiments fail to replicate, but not be permitted to then generalize this to the conclusion that all experiments conventionally labeled “social priming” do not replicate.
More insights here: https://acmelab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/bargh_commentary_on_sherman_and_rivers_in_psychological_inquiry_2021.pdf
