We propose a taxonomy according to which priming studies in social cognition research can be classified. Long-term priming is characterized by a long delay between the prime and test situations (several minutes or more) whereas short-term priming studies investigate short-term consequences (occurring within hundreds of milliseconds) of primes on subsequent target processing and response activation. Within short-term priming, we distinguish between response priming and semantic priming designs, and discuss the underlying mechanisms that mediate priming effects in the different designs. On the basis of these distinctions, we discuss the role of short-term priming research for an understanding of long-term priming effects in social cognition.