What was noted by E. J. hanger (1978) remains true today: that much of contemporary psychological research is based on the assumption people are consciously and systematically processing incoming information in order to construe interpret their world plan engage courses action. As did hanger, authors question this assumption. First, they review evidence ability exercise such conscious, intentional control actually quite limited, so most moment-to-mom ent life must occur through nonconscious...

Previous research has shown that trait concepts and stereotype become active automatically in the presence of relevant behavior or stereotyped-group features. Through use same priming procedures as previous impression formation research, Experiment 1 showed participants whose concept rudeness was printed interrupted experimenter more quickly frequently than did primed with polite-related stimuli. In 2, for whom an elderly walked slowly down hallway when leaving experiment control...

It is proposed that goals can be activated outside of awareness and then operate nonconsciously to guide self-regulation effectively (J. A. Bargh, 1990). Five experiments are reported in which the goal either perform well or cooperate was activated, without participants, through a priming manipulation. In Experiment 1 caused participants comparatively better on an intellectual task. 2 replenish commonly held resource more readily. 3 used dissociation paradigm rule out perceptual-construal...

Just as with most other communication breakthroughs before it, the initial media and popular reaction to Internet has been largely negative, if not apocalyptic. For example, it described “awash in pornography”, more recently making people “sad lonely.” Yet, counter widely publi cized claim that use causes depression social isolation, body of ev idence (even study on which was based) is mainly con trary. More than this, however, argued like telephone television by itself a main effect cause...

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 functional explanation for this effect. The authors hypothesized that evaluation results directly in behavioral predispositions toward the stimulus, such positive evaluations produce immediate approach tendencies, and negative avoidance tendencies. Participants responded object by pushing pulling lever....

"Warmth" is the most powerful personality trait in social judgment, and attachment theorists have stressed importance of warm physical contact with caregivers during infancy for healthy relationships adulthood. Intriguingly, recent research humans points to involvement insula processing both temperature interpersonal warmth (trust) information. Accordingly, we hypothesized that experiences (or coldness) would increase feelings coldness), without person's awareness this influence. In study 1,...

Those who feel better able to express their “true selves” in Internet rather than face‐to‐face interaction settings are more likely form close relationships with people met on the (McKenna, Green, & Gleason, this issue). Building these correlational findings from survey data, we conducted three laboratory experiments directly test hypothesized causal role of differential self‐expression relationship formation. Experiments 1 and 2, using a reaction time task, found that for university...

Health advocates have focused on the prevalence of advertising for calorie-dense low-nutrient foods as a significant contributor to obesity epidemic. This research tests hypothesis that exposure food during TV viewing may also contribute by triggering automatic snacking available food.

The unconscious mind is still viewed by many psychological scientists as the shadow of a “real” conscious mind, though there now exists substantial evidence that not identifiably less flexible, complex, controlling, deliberative, or action-oriented than its counterpart. This “conscious-centric” bias due in part to operational definition within cognitive psychology equates with subliminal. We review challenging this restricted view emerging from contemporary social cognition research, which...

According to the auto-motive model (J. A. Bargh, 1990), intentions and goals are represented mentally and, as representations, should be capable of nonconscious activation by environmental context (i.e., priming). To test this hypothesis, authors replicated 2 well-known experiments that had demonstrated differential effects varying information-processing goal (impression formation or memorization) on processing identical behavioral information. However, instead giving participants via...

Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, and Kardes (1986) demonstrated that Ss were able to evaluate adjectives more quickly when these immediately preceded (primed) by attitude objects of similar valence, compared with primed opposite valence. Moreover, this effect obtained primarily for toward which presumed hold highly accessible attitudes, as indexed evaluation latency. The present research explored the generality findings across procedural variations. results 3 experiments indicated automatic...

Internet newsgroups allow individuals to interact with others in a relatively anonymous fashion and thereby provide concealable stigmatized identities place belong not otherwise available. Thus, membership these groups should become an important part of identity. Study 1 fou