Divine verification: Introducing a CAPTCHA-based religious priming technique

Previous research on religious priming has predominantly relied on implicit and explicit approaches, both of which face critical limitations. Implicit primes often lack construct validity, while explicit primes are vulnerable to demand effects and social desirability biases. Moreover, the effectiveness of these methods has rarely been systematically validated. Addressing these gaps, we introduce and validate a novel technique-allusive priming-designed to minimize demand characteristics while reliably activating targeted constructs. Using allusive primes, religious themes (punitive, rewarding, forgiving, and neutral conceptions of God) were subtly embedded within CAPTCHA-like tasks. Following a preliminary calibration study (n = 104) to select materials, we conducted a preregistered online experiment (n = 2770 U.S. participants) comparing the effectiveness of two different allusive priming conditions with a standard explicit prime in how effectively they increase religious thought saliency. Participants completed a Word Completion Task to assess religious thought accessibility and a dictator game to explore prosocial outcomes. Results demonstrated that one of our two allusive primes significantly increased religious word completions. Critically, participants exposed to allusive primes exhibited lower awareness of the manipulation's purpose compared to those exposed to explicit primes, suggesting reduced demand effects. However, despite successful activation of religious thoughts, religious priming did not significantly influence generosity in the dictator game. These findings position allusive priming as a promising alternative to traditional methods, offering greater flexibility and ecological validity for priming diverse psychological constructs, while mitigating common validity threats.