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John Bargh  Professor (Ph.D., 1981, University of Michigan) Lab Page, Personal Home Page The ACME (Automaticity in Cognition, Motivation, and Emotion) Lab
at Yale (see link above) focuses on nonconscious or automatic
influences on psychological and behavioral processes. In one way or
another, all of our studies address the issue of free will, and how
much of it do we as individuals really have. We are interested in the
extent to which all social psychological phenomena -- attitudes and
evaluations, emotions, impressions, motivations, social behavior --
occur nonconsciously and automatically. Currently, our research is
actively exploring how social goals such as to cooperate, achieve,
become friends, and so on, are triggered and operate without the
person's awareness. We also are looking at the potential sources of
these nonconscious motivations in real life settings, for example, the
significant others in our lives can be one major source. A related
question is how these various sources of nonconscious influence
interact with each other, and how much of our 'real life' experience is
governed by them. We are also starting to look at emotional experience
as a potential internal trigger of goals and future intentions. That
all of these effects occur without the person's intention and
awareness, yet have such strong effects on the person's decisions and
behavior, has considerable implications for the nature and purpose of
consciousness. By discovering those domains of social life in which
conscious, deliberate processes are not necessary, we can shed more
light on what consciousness is needed for -- that is, what its true
purpose is. Fitzsimons, G. M., & Bargh, J. A. (2003). Thinking of you:
Nonconscious pursuit of interpersonal goals associated with
relationship partners. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 148 - 164. |
