Utilizing Priming Effects to Improve Access to Governmental Financial Reports: An Experimental Study of Non-Expert Users

This research examines if priming can be used to increase non-expert readers’ access to key information in public sector annual comprehensive financial reports (ACFRs). Priming is grounded in the idea that exposure to a given concept activates brain activities, making text related to that concept more accessible to the individual. Using an experimental research approach the results of the experiment offer support for the hypothesis that prior exposure to primes grounded in financial performance concepts improve non-expert audiences’ access to ACFRs. These findings are important because they suggest a path forward for increasing the value of ACFRs as a public sector transparency mechanism.