Your brain is being programmed by forces you never consciously notice
Okay – picture this: You’re watching the news. The anchor keeps using the phrase “border crisis” over and over. Later that day, someone asks what you think about immigration policy. Suddenly you’re way more worried about it than you were yesterday.
Here’s what just happened. You got played.
Ian Tuhovsky explains this in “Critical Thinking: Think Clearly in a World of Lies.” The book breaks down how our brains get manipulated by forces we never consciously notice. Chapter 10 focuses specifically on priming, which Tuhovsky defines as planting an idea in people’s minds to influence them later.
The news example is how it actually works. Researchers have shown that the specific words media outlets choose – “crisis” versus “situation,” “illegal aliens” versus “undocumented immigrants” – aren’t just weighted descriptions. They shape how you think about things. When asked why they hold certain views, people give rational reasons about economics, security, and values. Not one person says “because I heard the word ‘crisis’ seventeen times this morning.” Most people have no idea they’ve been influenced.
That’s priming. You get exposed to a stimulus – a word, a sound, an image, a smell – and your brain automatically activates related concepts. Those activated concepts then shape your next thoughts and actions without you ever knowing it happened.
We’ve already established that your System 1 thinking is fast, lazy, and runs on shortcuts. We talked about how it seeks cognitive ease and builds coherent stories from whatever information it has. But priming is the mechanism that loads the dice before System 1 even starts working.
Tuhovsky points out that priming works by setting off a chain of related ideas in your neural network. It’s completely unconscious. You’re getting constant nudging from ideas formed in your adaptive unconscious mind, and you’re generally unaware of it.
The old age walking study is the classic example.
Researchers had people unscramble sentences containing words related to being elderly – words like “Florida,” “forgetful,” “bald,” “wrinkled.” Afterwards, these people walked more slowly down the hallway than the control group. They didn’t know they were walking slowly. They certainly didn’t connect it to the words they’d just read. But their bodies responded anyway.
This is called the ideomotor effect. The mere thought of a behavior can trigger that behavior without conscious intention. Your brain reads “old age,” activates concepts related to moving slowly, and your body just does it.
Here’s what makes this terrifying. Priming threatens our self-image as conscious, autonomous agents. We like to think we’re in control. We make decisions. We choose our actions. We have reasons for what we do.
Priming research says that’s mostly an illusion.
Tuhovsky emphasizes that priming is employed widely in the modern world by advertisers, marketers, and political campaigns. They use it to manipulate buying behaviors and political viewpoints. And it works because System 1 can’t defend against it.
Think about political campaigns. Why do candidates use the same slogans over and over? Why do they repeat certain phrases in every speech? They’re priming you. Each repetition activates the neural networks they want you to access when you think about them or their opponents.
“Make America Great Again” isn’t just a slogan. It’s a priming tool. Every time some people hear it, their brain activates concepts related to greatness, America, nostalgia, and whatever personal associations they have with those words. By the time they’re actually evaluating policy positions, those concepts are already fired up and influencing their judgment.
The same thing happens with attack phrases. Call someone a “socialist” enough times, and voters start associating that person with every negative concept they’ve ever connected to socialism – even if they couldn’t define socialism if you asked them. The label does the work. The priming shapes the perception.
This connects directly to what we covered in Essay 4 about cognitive ease. Remember how your brain mistakes the feeling of familiarity for truth? Priming is how that familiarity gets manufactured. Repeat something enough times, in enough contexts, and it starts to feel true. Not because you evaluated evidence. But because your System 1 has been primed to accept it.
The advertising industry figured this out decades ago. That’s why you see the same commercial ten times during one football game. They’re not trying to convince you with rational arguments. They’re priming your brain so that when you’re standing in the store looking at products, their brand feels right. Familiar. Easy to choose.
Tuhovsky notes that priming can be used positively too. Teachers prime students by familiarizing them with material beforehand, which helps them perform better. That’s the same mechanism, just pointed in a helpful direction.
But let’s be real. Most of the priming you encounter isn’t designed to help you. It’s designed to influence you in ways that benefit someone else.
What makes priming especially insidious is that awareness doesn’t make you immune. Even when people know they’re being primed, even when they’re explicitly warned about the manipulation, it still works. Your System 1 processes those associations automatically. You can’t turn it off.
So if you can’t escape priming, what do you do?
First, you notice the environment. When you’re about to make a decision, ask yourself what you were just exposed to. What were you reading? What music was playing? What words were you just hearing? Those recent exposures are priming your judgment right now.
Second, you slow down. Priming operates on System 1. When you engage System 2, when you deliberately think through your reasoning, you create space between the priming stimulus and your response. That space matters.
Third, you get suspicious of repetition. When you keep hearing the same phrase, the same slogan, the same framing, recognize that someone is trying to prime you. They’re planting seeds in your neural network. The fact that something feels familiar, feels right, feels obvious – that’s not evidence. That’s priming doing its job.
Look at how political debates get framed. The language used to describe an issue isn’t neutral. “Tax relief” primes you differently than “tax cuts.” “Climate change” hits differently than “global warming.” “Pro-life” versus “anti-abortion.” These aren’t just word choices. They’re strategic priming designed to activate specific associations before you even start thinking about the substance.
Here’s the pattern we’ve built across these five essays. Your brain runs two systems. System 2 is lazy and avoids work. System 1 fills the gap with mental shortcuts. Those shortcuts create cognitive ease when information feels familiar and coherent. And priming is how that sense of familiarity gets installed without your consent or awareness.
You’re being manipulated constantly. Your thoughts aren’t entirely your own. The ideas that feel natural, the judgments that seem obvious, the choices that appear self-evident – all of them have been shaped by priming effects you never noticed.
Tuhovsky emphasizes that priming is like the secret handshake of the subconscious mind. While persuasion involves conscious effort and logical arguments, priming is the silent mechanism that pre-tunes your brain. It sets the channel before the broadcast begins.
This is why critical thinking is so difficult. You’re not just fighting external misinformation. You’re fighting manipulation that happens below the level of conscious awareness. By the time you start thinking deliberately about something, your System 1 has already been primed. The game is rigged before you even know you’re playing.
The only defense is vigilance. Notice what you’re being exposed to. Question why certain phrases get repeated. Recognize when your choices feel too easy, too obvious, too right. That feeling of certainty is often just priming wearing a disguise.
Your brain is being programmed right now. The question is whether you’re going to pretend it isn’t happening, or whether you’re going to start paying attention to who’s doing the programming.