The unbearable automaticity of being

“For example, using probabilistic population codes for Bayesian decisionmaking, Beck et al.’s (2008) evidence suggests that our “unconscious” brain makes the best decisions; similarly, using fMRI, Soon, Brass, Heinze, and Haynes (2008) found that unconscious brain activity in prefrontal and parietal cortices predicts d…”

“One explanation derives from Bargh and co-workers (eg, Bargh & Chartrand, 1999 ) who argue that behaviours which are traditionally taken to be voluntary and consciously driven may in fact be under automatic control of the environment in which the behaviour has evolved.”

“…behavior is largely, if not solely, affected by subconscious functions: “Most of a person’s everyday life is determined not by their conscious intentions and deliberate choices but by mental processes that . . . operate outside of conscious awareness and guidance” (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999: 462).”

“As with other cognitive associations (e.g., the link between a significant other and a goal; Fitzsimons and Bargh 2003), a link between guilt and pleasure may become automatic and nonconscious over time because of repeated internal coactivation (Bargh and Chartrand 1999).”

“Consciousness (‘working memory’) is an extremely limited resource, so there is enormous pressure to consolidate and automatise learned solutions to life’s problems (for a review see Bargh & Chartrand, 1999, who conclude that only 5% of our goal-directed actions are conscious).”

“All two-way interactions were reliable: Story Type Span, F(1, 68) 31.9, p .001; Story Type Timing, F(3, 66) 5.6, p .05; and Timing Span, F(3, 66) 2.9, p .05.”

“According to Bargh and Chartrand (1999) , behaviors become habits when they are repeatedly performed and positively reinforced.”

“Bargh and Chartrand (1999) argue that “most of a person’s everyday life is determined not by their conscious intentions and deliberate choices but by mental processes that are put into motion by features of the environment that operate outside of conscious awareness and guidance” (p. 462).”

“Not only do we appear to automatically classify incoming stimuli as good or bad but these positive and negative evaluations have been linked directly to behavioural predispositions (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999 ; Chen & Bargh, 1999 ).”

“However, “Most of moment to moment psychological life occurs through nonconscious means…various nonconscious mental systems perform the lion’s share of the self-regulating burden, beneficently keeping the individual grounded in his or her environment” (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999, p. 462).”

“If consumers encounter various product attributes together over time, the associations between them may become automatic (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999) such that, given one attribute, a positive correlation on the other may be predicted.”

“Members will deal with these everyday issues unconsciously, utilizing their existing schemata as the parameter for perception and behavior (Bargh and Chartrand, 1999).”

“Appraisals may be automatic, executed without intention and performed without conscious deliberation [30]; for example, a meta-analysis has shown that predictions about the intent and future behaviors of others are typically made in less than 30 s [31].”

“Indeed, one baboon can spend years acquiring the ‘ rights ’ to groom a high-ranking conspecifi c, and a false step in that process might prevent her passing on her genes ( Barrett et al. , 1999 ).”

“Faster response times have been shown to be associated with more reflexive judgment (e.g., Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Rand et al., 2012).”

“For example, killing may beget killing because greater initial killing simply primes people to kill more later (e.g., Bargh & Chartrand, 1999).”

“Perhaps most relevant to this article, however, is Bargh and Chartrand’s (1999) analysis of what they call ‘the unbearable automaticity of being’.”

“In contrast to explicit social cognition, implicit social cognition has typically been defined as thoughts and feelings about social objects that are at least partially outside of conscious awareness (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Devine, 1989; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995).”

“…course, that most current cognitive and social cognitive research focuses specifically on the automatic side of this dichotomy, so much so that there seems to be progressively less room for the "little person in the head" (e.g., Bargh, 1997; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; but see Bargh & Ferguson, 2000).”

“…have taught us that decision-making is ‘‘intendedly rational, but only limitedly so’’ (Simon, 1961, p. xxiv) and that most behaviour is automatic (Bargh and Chartrand, 1999), emotional (Damasio, 1999, 2000; Elster, 1999), instinctive (Camerer et al., 2005; Rubinstein, 2007), or otherwise…”

“Bargh and Chartrand (1999) offer a more thorough analysis of the intuitive system and identify three different processes generating seemingly spontaneous decisions: They propose intuition as an automatic effect of: i) perception on action, ii) automatic goal pursuit, and iii) a continual automatic…”

“[2] See Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky (1982), Nisbett and Ross (1980), Bargh (1999, 2005), Bargh, Chen, & Burrows (1996), Bargh and Chartrand (1999), Chartrand and Bargh (1999), etc.”

“Frequency and consistency leads to automaticity (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999).”

“Bowlby also cited analogous tachistoscopic and eye movement findings. He interpreted these data as evidence that (a) sensory inflow can be processed outside of awareness (b) and its meaning determined (c) such that it influences behavior (d) without the individual being aware of this bias. Contemporary information pro…”

“Recently, the automaticity of human behaviour has captured the interest of psychologists (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999), leading to something of a counter-revolution against the cognitive revolution, which gave rise to models such as Haidt’s social intuitionist model.”

“Because many self-regulatory processes occur automatically and outside awareness (e.g., Bargh & Chartrand, 1999), it is important to test whether the proposed resource function of self-affirmation may also extend to this area, and whether it increases responsiveness to threatening health…”

“It is generally assumed that priming effects are attributable to the activation of knowledge structures and that this activation occurs automatically and spontaneously (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Graf & Masson, 1993; Schacter, 1987; Underwood, 1996).”

“The notion of automaticity suggests that many decision processes operate at a subconscious level using algorithms and heuristics (Bargh and Chartrand 1999 ).”

“…a number of decades ago with renewed interest in the ‘cognitive unconscious’ and the notion of two parallel (dual) systems of information processing referred to generically as System 1 and System 2 (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977; Wilson, Lindsay, & Schooler, 2000).”

“The executive system can choose to go with the flow of familiar memories or oppose them, depending on its higher level goals (also see Bargh & Chartrand, 1999 ).”

“We acknowledge, however, that participants’ perceptions can often be detached from the situation’s objective reality (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999), and so future research should attempt to replicate our findings with more objective manipulations of task difficulty.”

“There is now good evidence that some behaviors too are often automatic and are instigated without conscious control (Bargh & Chartland, 1999).”

“…once started as explicit knowledge and subject of overt communication becomes implicit: the conscious sensemaking and discussions among team members drop out of team and organization members’ mental sequence to the extent they are no longer needed or wanted (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Sheriff, 2000).”

“Bargh & Cartrand (1999); Beilock & Carr (2001); Hill, Hanton, Matthews, & Fleming (2010); MacPherson et al. (2008); Masters (1992); Masters & Maxwell (2008).”

“Research on implicit processes (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Wegner, 1994) suggests that not all our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are under our cognitive control.”

“It is now well accepted that in the course of our daily functioning, we encode a vast amount of information about our environment, most of it unconsciously (Bargh and Chartrand 1999; Hogarth 2005; Lewicki 1986).”

“These intuitive insights and ideas may act as “mental moderators” to individuals’ learning tendencies and preferences (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999) and are typically generated in a tacit or preverbal form (Hogarth, 2001).”

“Implicit cognition involves human learning and attitude formation in the absence of overt processing and, in some cases, conscious awareness (Alba and Hutchinson 2000; Bargh and Chartrand 1999; Greenwald and Banaji 1995; Janiszewski 1988, 1993; Janiszewski and Meyvis 2001; Shapiro 1999).”

“Similarly, multiple goals may be active at once without the person’s awareness of all or some of the goals (Bargh, 1990, 2006; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Bargh & Morsella, 2010; Fishbach & Ferguson, 2007; Förster et al., 2007; Kruglanski et al., 2002).”

“High-status individuals typically process information using cognitive heuristics and simplifying rules (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Wegner & Bargh, 1998).”

“Moreover, earlier research has linked mindfulness with sustainable behaviours [9,47], with the proposed mechanism being that mindfulness promotes better self-world connection and awareness of actions, leading away from automaticity and resulting in a greater ability to regulate one’s behaviour [50,51].”

“( Bargh & Chartrand, 1999, p. 476) So, we act unconsciously when we are awake.”

“…a certain perspective it, would be remarkable if emotions did not influence moral judgments, simply because of the overwhelming evidence for their pervasive influence on judgments of other kinds (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Murphy & Zajonc, 1993; Wilson, 1979; Zajonc, 1980).”

“Much of normal human activity and cognition occurs automatically and out of awareness— as is necessary for efficient functioning (Bargh and Chartrand 1999).”

“In recent years, the field of social psychology has been revolutionized by evidence suggesting that rudimentary situational primes can surreptitiously activate action representations, eliciting overt social behavior without conscious intention or awareness (for a review, see Bargh & Chartrand 1999 ).”

“Certainly, unconscious thought influences judgment and behavior (Aarts & Dijkskterhuis, 1999; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Dijksterhuis, Chartrand, & Aarts, 2007; Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, in press), but it may be the manner of their generation rather than their concealed nature that lends them such importan…”