Incidence of delayed stress disorder among Vietnam era veterans: The effect of priming on response set.

Recent studies concluded that a significant number of Vietnam era veterans suffer now from a service-related stress disorder. This paper suggests that a priming artifact may have operated in many such studies to confound an understanding of the nature and estimate of the disorder. Findings of a study designed to test the effect of priming on veterans' self-ratings support the hypothesis that veterans, particularly noncombat veterans, tend to rate themselves in a manner consistent with prior information provided by the testers.