How Priming can improve trading performance

Priming is an implicit memory effect in which exposure to one stimulus (i.e., perceptual pattern) influences the response to another stimulus. 

Will discuss 2 case studies to make you understand the PRIMING concept.

 

Two groups of subjects in a psychology experiment are asked to memorize those words in a list that begin with vowels.  The vowel words are exactly the same for the two groups.

The consonant words given to the first group include such terms as “difficult”, “confusing”, and “bad”.  T

The second group receives a different group of consonant words, such as “excellent”, “easy”, and “simple”.

After the experiment, the second group reports feeling in a much better mood than the first, but cannot explain why.

 

Another Research have been done where a professional group of traders  was divided in 2 groups

1 Group was  shown a story about a man walking in casino and gambling aggressively and the second group  was shown other story where they were shown a person walking in casino and not gambling.

After the experiment both Groups were asked to trade

Result was traders 1 group traded aggressively and  traders in other group trade normally.

The First group of traders were unable to explain why they are trading aggressively.

It turns out that many background phenomena play a role in what we think and how we feel.

Priming is the Unconscious Influence we have in our trading.

Let me explain in simple term

Try to recall during our exams days we would review important material right before going to exams and it used to remain fresh in our memory. It must be something about how our brain consolidates information.

As a trader One of the challenges  is ensuring that what you’ve prepared in your trading plan  will actually stick in the mind when you’re in live market.It is not at all uncommon for traders that they deviate from trading plan and do opposite of what they have prepared themselves during live trading.

This is where PRIMING comes in focus. PRIMING helps us in sticking our trading plan and improve on trading performance.

There are various strategies in which PRIMING can be implemented, will discuss them during the course of the articles.