John A. Bargh

The Unbearable Automaticity of Being

What was noted by E. J. hanger (1978) remains true today: that much of contemporary psychological research is based on the assumption that people are consciously and systematically processing incoming information in order to construe and interpret their world and to plan and engage in courses of action. As did E. J. hanger, the authors question this assumption. First, they review evidence that the ability to exercise such conscious, intentional control is actually quite limited, so that most of moment-to-mom ent psychological life must occur through nonconscious means if it is to occur at all. The authors then describe the different possible mechanisms that produce automatic, environmental control over these various phenomena and review evidence establishing both the existence of these mechanisms as well as their consequences for judgments, emotions, and behavior. Three major forms of automatic self-regulation are identified: an automatic effect of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of ones experience. From the accumulating evidence, the authors conclude that these various nonconscious mental systems perform the lions share of the self-regulatory burden, beneficently keeping the individual grounded in his or her current environment. The strongest knowledge—that of the total unfreedom of the human will—is nonetheless the poorest in successes, for it always has the strongest opponent: human vanity. —Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

The chameleon effect : The perception-behavior link and social interaction

The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of ones interaction partners, such that ones behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in ones current social environment. The authors suggest that the mechanism involved is the perception-behavior link, the recently documented finding (e.g., J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996) that the mere perception of anothers behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself. Experiment 1 showed that the motor behavior of participants unintentionally matched that of strangers with whom they worked on a task. Experiment 2 had confederates mimic the posture and movements of participants and showed that mimicry facilitates the smoothness of interactions and increases liking between interaction partners. Experiment 3 showed that dispositionally empathic individuals exhibit the chameleon effect to a greater extent than do other people.

Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action

Previous research has shown that trait concepts and stereotype become active automatically in the presence of relevant behavior or stereotyped-group features. Through the use of the same priming procedures as in previous impression formation research, Experiment 1 showed that participants whose concept of rudeness was printed interrupted the experimenter more quickly and frequently than did participants primed with polite-related stimuli. In Experiment 2, participants for whom an elderly stereotype was primed walked more slowly down the hallway when leaving the experiment than did control participants, consistent with the content of that stereotype. In Experiment 3, participants for whom the African American stereotype was primed subliminally reacted with more hostility to a vexatious request of the experimenter. Implications of this automatic behavior priming effect for self-fulfilling prophecies are discussed, as is whether social behavior is necessarily mediated by conscious choice processes.

The psychology of action : linking cognition and motivation to behavior

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Plan 9 From Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for Personality and Social Psychology

Just as with most other communication breakthroughs before it, the initial media and popular reaction to the Internet has been largely negative, if not apocalyptic. For example, it has been described as “awash in pornography”, and more recently as making people “sad and lonely.” Yet, counter to the initial and widely publi cized claim that Internet use causes depression and social isolation, the body of ev idence (even in the initial study on which the claim was based) is mainly to the con trary. More than this, however, it is argued that like the telephone and television before it, the Internet by itself is not a main effect cause of anything, and that psy chology must move beyond this notion to an informed analysis of how social iden tity, social interaction, and relationship formation may be different on the Internet than in real life. Four major differences and their implications for self and identity, social interaction, and relationships are identified: ones greater anonymity, the greatly reduced importance of physical appearance and physical distance as “gating features” to relationship development, and ones greater control over the time and pace of interactions. Existing research is reviewed along these lines and some promising directions for future research are described.

Consequences of Automatic Evaluation: Immediate Behavioral Predispositions to Approach or Avoid the Stimulus

Research on automatic attitude activation has documented a pervasive tendency to nonconsciously classify most if not all incoming stimuli as either good or bad. Two experiments tested a functional explanation for this effect. The authors hypothesized that automatic evaluation results directly in behavioral predispositions toward the stimulus, such that positive evaluations produce immediate approach tendencies, and negative evaluations produce immediate avoidance tendencies. Participants responded to attitude object stimuli either by pushing or by pulling a lever. Consistent with the hypothesis, participants were faster to respond to negatively valenced stimuli when pushing the lever away (avoid) than when pulling it toward them (approach) but were faster to respond to positive stimuli by pulling than by pushing the lever. This pattern held even when evaluation of the stimuli was irrelevant to the participants’ conscious task. The automatic classification of stimuli as either good or bad appears to have direct behavioral consequences.

Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the "True Self" on the Internet

Those who feel better able to express their “true selves” in Internet rather than face-to-face interaction settings are more likely to form close relationships with people met on the Internet (McKenna, Green, & Gleason, this issue). Building on these correlational findings from survey data, we conducted three laboratory experiments to directly test the hypothesized causal role of differential self-expression in Internet relationship formation. Experiments 1 and 2, using a reaction time task, found that for university undergraduates, the true-self concept is more accessible in memory during Internet interactions, and the actual self more accessible during face-to-face interactions. Experiment 3 confirmed that people randomly assigned to interact over the Internet (vs. face to face) were better able to express their true-self qualities to their partners.

The perception–behavior expressway: Automatic effects of social perception on social behavior.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the functional relation between perception and behavior. It presents a general perspective on perception and action along with elaborating the direct relation between perception and behavior and specifically on one consequence of this relation—namely, the imitation. The chapter describes the core concepts of social perception. Furthermore, the chapter examines all three forms of social perception that lead directly to corresponding overt behavioral tendencies. The cognitive approach that has dominated psychology for over 30 years has changed psychologys perspective on perception. Certainly, perception is essential for us to comprehend our environment but that does not mean that this understanding is an end in itself. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the perception-behavior link from a functional perspective. In specific, perception provides an understanding of the world. Social perception refers to the activation of a perceptual representation, which generally has a direct effect on social behavior. Perceptual inputs are translated automatically into corresponding behavioral outputs.

Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth

“Warmth” is the most powerful personality trait in social judgment, and attachment theorists have stressed the importance of warm physical contact with caregivers during infancy for healthy relationships in adulthood. Intriguingly, recent research in humans points to the involvement of the insula in the processing of both physical temperature and interpersonal warmth (trust) information. Accordingly, we hypothesized that experiences of physical warmth (or coldness) would increase feelings of interpersonal warmth (or coldness), without the persons awareness of this influence. In study 1, participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a “warmer” personality (generous, caring); in study 2, participants holding a hot (versus cold) therapeutic pad were more likely to choose a gift for a friend instead of for themselves.

Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behavior

OBJECTIVE Health advocates have focused on the prevalence of advertising for calorie-dense low-nutrient foods as a significant contributor to the obesity epidemic. This research tests the hypothesis that exposure to food advertising during TV viewing may also contribute to obesity by triggering automatic snacking of available food. DESIGN In Experiments 1a and 1b, elementary-school-age children watched a cartoon that contained either food advertising or advertising for other products and received a snack while watching. In Experiment 2, adults watched a TV program that included food advertising that promoted snacking and/or fun product benefits, food advertising that promoted nutrition benefits, or no food advertising. The adults then tasted and evaluated a range of healthy to unhealthy snack foods in an apparently separate experiment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Amount of snack foods consumed during and after advertising exposure. RESULTS Children consumed 45% more when exposed to food advertising. Adults consumed more of both healthy and unhealthy snack foods following exposure to snack food advertising compared to the other conditions. In both experiments, food advertising increased consumption of products not in the presented advertisements, and these effects were not related to reported hunger or other conscious influences. CONCLUSION These experiments demonstrate the power of food advertising to prime automatic eating behaviors and thus influence far more than brand preference alone.