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Current Directions in Psychological Science http://cdp.sagepub.com/

The Automaticity of Social Life John A. Bargh and Erin L. Williams

Current Directions in Psychological Science 2006 15: 1 DOI: 10.1111/j.0963-7214.2006.00395.x

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CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

The Automaticity of Social Life John A. Bargh and Erin L. Williams

Yale University

ABSTRACT—Much of social life is experienced through

mental processes that are not intended and about which

one is fairly oblivious. These processes are automatically

triggered by features of the immediate social environment,

such as the group memberships of other people, the quali-

ties of their behavior, and features of social situations (e.g.,

norms, one’s relative power). Recent research has shown

these nonconscious infuences to extend beyond the per-

ception and interpretation of the social world to the actual

guidance, over extended time periods, of one’s important

goal pursuits and social interactions.

KEYWORDS—social cognition; automaticity; unconscious

Automaticity refers to control of one’s internal psychological

processes by external stimuli and events in one’s immediate

environment, often without knowledge or awareness of such

control; automatic phenomena are usually contrasted with those

processes that are consciously or intentionally put into opera-

tion. Given the historical focus of social psychology on social

problems (e.g., discrimination, aggression), it is important to

understand the extent to which such negative outcomes might

occur without the person’s awareness or despite his or her good

intentions.

But just because social psychologists tend to study social

problems does not mean that automatic processes produce only

negative outcomes. To the contrary, much current automaticity

research has focused on how nonconscious processes contribute

to successful self-regulation and adaptation. As traditional ap-

proaches to self-regulation have emphasized the role of con-

scious, controlled, or executive processes in overcoming

impulsive reactions or bad habits, the potential role of noncon-

scious self-regulatory processes has been somewhat overlooked

until recently. But because only conscious, controlled processes

can ‘‘time-travel’’—when the person remembers the past or

anticipates the future—nonconscious processes become es-

sential for keeping the individual grounded adaptively and ef-

fectively in the present (Bargh, 1997). In terms of contemporary

Address correspondence to John A. Bargh, Department of Psychol- ogy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520; e-mail: [email protected].

dual-process approaches to cognition, then, nonconscious

processes appear to serve a default, background regulatory

function, freeing the conscious mind from the concerns of the

immediate environment.

SOCIAL PERCEPTION

Much of the early automaticity research in social psychology

focused on social perception—the degree to which people’s

impressions of others are driven by automatic biases. A widely

studied source of such bias has been the accessibility of social-

behavior representations (i.e., trait constructs such as ‘‘intelli-

gent’’ or ‘‘shy’’). The automatic use of a given construct to

interpret the meaning of someone else’s behavior occurs either

when one has frequently used that construct in the past (i.e.,

chronic accessibility) or when one has recently used that con-

struct in some unrelated context (i.e., priming or temporary ac-

cessibility). Priming manipulations typically seek to passively

and unobtrusively activate the construct in question by having

the participant think about or use it in an early phase of the

experiment (e.g., a ‘‘language test’’) that is ostensibly unrelated

to what follows.

In general, early automaticity research showed that several

different forms of social representations become automatically

activated in the course of social perception, triggered by the

presence of their corresponding features in the environment. The

race-, gender-, or age-related features of another person can

automatically trigger group stereotypes associated with them;

one’s consistent affective reactions toward social objects (spe-

cific individuals, groups) can become automatically activated

upon the mere perception of those objects; and features of one’s

significant others (e.g., mother, close friend) can automatically

activate the specific mental representations of these individuals

(see review in Wegner & Bargh, 1998).

Indeed, most automatic effects on social life are mediated by

the nonconscious activation of social representations—either

preconsciously through direct activation by strongly associated

stimuli in the environment (as in racial stereotyping effects) or

postconsciously through recent, conscious use in an unrelated

context (as in most category-priming effects). Given the impor-

tant mediational role played by these structures, current re-

search has focused on discovering the types of information

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The Automaticity of Social Life

stored within them (e.g., evaluations, goals, trait concepts), as it

is these contents that then automatically guide thought and

behavior.

THE PERCEPTION–BEHAVIOR LINK

Under the hypothesis that whatever representations become

active in social perception will also tend to directly infuence

behavior, initial tests of automatic social behavior used the same

priming methods as in the prior social-perception research to

subtly activate trait constructs. However, instead of being asked

for their impressions of a target person, participants were put

into a situation in which they had the opportunity to act (or not) in

line with the primed construct. In an initial study, participants

who had been unobtrusively exposed to (i.e., primed with) in-

stances of the concept ‘‘rude’’ were considerably more likely to

interrupt a subsequent conversation than were those primed with

the concept ‘‘polite’’ (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996; see Fig. 1).

The logic of the perception–behavior link is that it should

apply to any knowledge structure automatically activated in the

course of social perception. Social or group stereotypes are

one well-researched example. In the course of social perception,

people tend to automatically encode minority-group members

in terms of their associated stereotypes. Because stereotypes

become automatically activated by the mere perception of

group features (e.g., skin color) in an individual, the activated

stereotype should produce stereotype-consistent behavioral

tendencies.

Over the past decade, many studies have obtained just this

result. Subtle priming of the stereotype of the elderly (which

includes the notions that the elderly are forgetful, as well as

physically slow and weak) caused college students to walk more

slowly when leaving the experimental session (in one study) and

to subsequently have poorer memory for the features of a room (in

P er

ce n

t w

h o

in te

rr u

p te

d

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0 Polite Neutral Rude

Priming Condition

Fig. 1. Percentage of participants primed with the concept ‘‘polite,’’ the concept ‘‘rude,’’ or a neutral concept who interrupted a conversation between the experimenter and a confederate (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996, Experiment 1). From ‘‘Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Ef- fects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Priming on Action,’’ by J.A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, page 235. Copyright 1996 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.

another)—both effects predicted from the content of that ster-

eotype. Stereotypes associated with social roles produce similar

effects: Priming the professor stereotype led to students an-

swering a greater number of questions correctly in a trivia game

(see review in Dijksterhuis & Bargh, 2001).

NONCONSCIOUS GOAL PURSUIT

Another potential mechanism by which the social environment

can directly infuence social behavior is through the activation

and operation of goal representations that have become strongly

associated with a particular situation. If an individual repeatedly

chooses to pursue a certain goal in a situation, then eventually

merely encountering that situation is enough to automatically

activate the goal and put it into operation (see Bargh, Gollwitzer,

Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Troetschel, 2001). For example, a

parent who chose to forego her own interests and instead pursue

her child’s best interests, when there was a confict between the

two, eventually would come to act in her child’s interests without

having to think or consciously decide to; another person who

tended to put her own interests frst would eventually, over time,

automatically pursue her own goals instead of those of her child.

Tests of this model have used the same priming procedures as

discussed above to activate a variety of goal representations; the

effects of the primed goals are then assessed across a variety of

dependent measures. These have included not only cognitive

and behavioral consequences of the goal pursuit but also classic

qualities of motivational states, such as persistence in the face of

obstacles and resumption of interrupted tasks. This research has

shown that when a goal is activated outside of the participant’s

awareness, the same outcomes are obtained as in previous re-

search on conscious goal pursuit. For example, in one study,

subliminal priming of a cooperation goal produced the same

increase in cooperative behavior as did explicit, conscious in-

structions to cooperate (Bargh et al., 2001). Importantly, par-

ticipants showed no signs of being aware either of the activation

of the goal or of its operation over time to guide their behavior.

In the cooperation-goal study, for example, participants in the

conscious-cooperation condition could accurately report on how

cooperative they had just been; those in the nonconscious

(primed) cooperation condition could not.

APPLICATIONS TO SPHERES OF SOCIAL LIFE

Close Relationships Much recent work on the automaticity of social life has focused

on close relationships. Because of the importance of the goals

one typically pursues with close relationship partners (e.g., in-

timacy, belonging, achievement) and the high frequency of in-

teracting with them, the significant others in one’s life are likely

to become external triggers of nonconscious goal pursuits.

Across fve studies, Fitzsimons and Bargh (2003) found that

priming the representations of participants’ close others (e.g.,

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John A. Bargh and Erin L. Williams

spouses, parents, colleagues) caused the participants to behave

in line with the goals stored within those representations. People

waiting at an airport were more likely to donate time to help the

experimenter after being asked questions about their friends

than they were after being asked about their coworkers; partic-

ipants in a laboratory study who had earlier indicated having a

goal to make their mother proud of them outperformed others on

a subsequent verbal task, but only after subliminal priming of

the representation of their mother.

Situational Features Are there automatic infuences on social behavior toward people

one does not already know well? In general, it is the function of

social norms to provide guidelines for how to behave toward

strangers and new acquaintances. One is generally expected to

act in a mildly positive manner toward strangers, to not harm

them, and to assist them to the extent they truly need help and

one has the ability to help.

Routine settings and situations also have particularized norms

for conduct that are automatically activated when one enters

those settings. In harmony with the hypothesis that the mental

representation of ‘‘library’’ contains within it action components

that automatically guide appropriate action in that setting, Aarts

and Dijksterhuis (2003) found that showing participants a pic-

ture of a library and instructing them to go to the library after the

experimental session caused them to speak more softly during

the experiment, compared to control participants.

Social Structure (Power) Sociostructural variables, such as where one fts in the organi-

zational or power hierarchy of a group, can also have implicit,

automatic effects on thought and behavior. Generally, the non-

conscious activation of the concept of power seems to produce

greater concern with one’s own goals and less concern with the

outcomes of others, consistent with the traditional lore that

‘‘power corrupts.’’ Fortunately, not everyone has such self-cen-

tered automatic goals when in positions of power. Chen, Lee-

Chai, and Bargh (2001) showed that there are those who instead

automatically pursue the goal of helping and advancing the

outcomes of those in their charge. Across several experiments,

Chen et al. (2001) found that when these communally-oriented

people (as determined by their responses to an initial ques-

tionnaire taken some months before the experimental session)

were primed with power-related stimuli, they became less selfish

than usual and more concerned with the outcomes of other

participants, compared to a control condition.

(NONCONSCIOUSLY) MOTIVATED COGNITION

One burgeoning area of research involving automatic social

phenomena is motivated cognition—especially self-protective

motives. Spencer, Fein, Wolfe, Fong, and Dunn (1998) demon-

strated that threatening participants’ self-esteem (through false

task-failure feedback) automatically caused an increase in their

tendency to stereotype others. Apparently (and depressingly),

the denigration of others appears to be an automatic and refex-

ive response to personal failures and threats to one’s self-esteem.

But there are grounds for hope. Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel,

and Schaal (1999) showed that automatic stereotype infuences

can be effectively countered if the individual possesses an auto-

matic goal to be egalitarian and fair toward others. However,

egalitarian participants did, however, show the same evidence of

stereotype activation as did the other participants. Apparently,

then, the stimulus of a minority-group member automatically

started two processes at the same time: the activation of the ster-

eotype and the activation of the egalitarian motive, with the latter

functioning to shut down or inhibit the former before it could

infuence judgments. Moskowitz et al. (1999) have thus identi-

fed a positive form of automatic motivated cognition and shown

how it is possible for chronically good intentions to prevail.

BENEFITS OF NONCONSCIOUS SELF-REGULATION

From Freud onward, scholars of successful adaptation and self-

regulation have regarded nonconscious phenomena as mainly

problematic—sources of negative outcomes (e.g., psychopa-

thology, bad habits) and certainly not a help to adaptive func-

tioning. However, recent theoretical analyses of intuition have

emphasized the importance of immediate, automatic infuences

on choices and decision making. These have been touted as the

mechanisms underlying the ‘‘gut feelings’’ or ‘‘hunches’’ that, far

from being random or illusory, do a fairly good job of directing us

(see Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, in press; Lieberman, 2000).

In general, the nonconscious nature of these judgment- and

behavior-guiding processes makes them a boon to effective self-

regulation, because of their immediacy, effciency, and reliability.

It would seem to make good sense for as much guidance of current

behavior to occur outside those conscious limits as possible.

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The automatic infuences on social life are many and diverse.

Other people, their characteristic features, the groups they be-

long to, the social roles they fll, and whether or not one has a

close relationship with them have all been found to be automatic

triggers of important psychological and behavioral processes. So

too have features of standard situations, which become auto-

matically associated with general norms and rules of conduct, as

well as with one’s own personal goals when in those situations.

One new line of research concerns how specific emotions such

as anger, guilt, and happiness prime (i.e., nonconsciously in-

fuence) judgments and behavior (e.g., Lerner, Small, & Loe-

wenstein, 2004). Most people are aware of the powerful

infuences that emotions can have over immediate behavior and

judgments but remain unaware that these infuences can carry

over into unrelated contexts in which decisions and behavioral

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The Automaticity of Social Life

choices are made. Indeed, most priming studies depend on the

fact that mental representations activated in one context take

time to return to a deactivated state and are more likely to have

an infuence while active than they are at other times. The carry-

over effects of recent emotional experiences are likely to prove

a common source of automatic infuences in everyday life.

Research programs are moving beyond frst-generation ques-

tions of whether nonconscious infuences exist and what forms

they might take to second-generation questions of how priming

operates in the stimulus-rich real world. For instance, laboratory

research has shown that a given priming stimulus can provoke,

in parallel, a variety of immediate automatic responses (e.g., in

perception, in motivation). But in unconstrained real-world

settings, people are bombarded with thousands of such stimuli

every day, from advertisements to items in store windows to in-

dividuals one passes while walking down a busy street. Which

of these will exert nonconscious infuences, and which will not?

Another direction for research is determining how the various

kinds of automatic effects interact with each other. The re-

sponses suggested by nonconscious infuences may be in confict

with each other, such that one cannot possibly act on every

preconsciously generated behavioral impulse. Models of how

these conficts are resolved, utilizing both nonconscious and

conscious means, are now beginning to enter the literature (e.g.,

Morsella’s PRISM model; Morsella, 2005); further research on

how these parallel potentialities are transformed into one-at-a-

time responses by individuals is urgently needed.

Finally, the recent discovery of mirror neurons (e.g., Rizzolatti,

Fogassi, & Gallese, 2001), and what they have revealed about

the hard-wired nature of the perception–behavior link in hu-

mans, is a tremendously important development in the history of

psychology. These neurons, located in the premotor cortex

of higher primates, have the intriguing property of becoming

active both when a person watches an action being performed

and when the person performs that action him- or herself. Social

cognitive neuroscience research has already shown just how

deeply and fundamentally—dare we say, automatically—our

minds are connected to each other and to the larger social world.

Recommended Reading Bargh, J.A., & Chartrand, T.L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of

being. American Psychologist, 54, 462–479.

Chaiken, S., & Trope, Y. (Eds., 1999). Dual-process theories in social psychology. New York: Guilford.

Gladwell, M. (2004). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New

York: Little, Brown.

Myers, D.G. (2002). Intuition: Its powers and perils. New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press.

Wilson, T.D. (2002). Strangers to ourselves. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

Acknowledgments—Preparation of this manuscript was

supported in part by Grant R01-MH60767 from the National

Institute of Mental Health (USA). We thank Ap Dijksterhuis

and Ezequiel Morsella for comments and advice on an earlier

version.

REFERENCES

Aarts, H., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2003). The silence of the library: Envi-

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Bargh, J.A. (1997). The automaticity of everyday life. In R.S. Wyer

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Bargh, J.A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social

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