TY - JOUR
T1 - Help, I need somebody
T2 - Automatic action and inaction
AU - Macrae, C. Neil
AU - Johnston, Lucy
PY - 1998
Y1 - 1998
N2 - The goal of behavioral control is of central importance in everyday life. When the production of an unwanted action can have deleterious consequences for perceivers, there is considerable virtue in the possession of a mental system that edits its behavioral products to meet the demands of a challenging world. Accordingly, in an attempt to extend existing work on this topic (e.g., Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996), in the present research we investigated the extent to which the automatic elicitation of action may be moderated by features of the task environment and perceivers' goal states. Our findings were unequivocal. When inhibitory cues were present in the environment (i.e., Experiment 1), or perceivers had a competing goal in mind (i.e., Experiment 2), automatic behavioral priming effects were eliminated. We consider the implications of our findings for recent treatments of behavioral priming and action control.
AB - The goal of behavioral control is of central importance in everyday life. When the production of an unwanted action can have deleterious consequences for perceivers, there is considerable virtue in the possession of a mental system that edits its behavioral products to meet the demands of a challenging world. Accordingly, in an attempt to extend existing work on this topic (e.g., Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996), in the present research we investigated the extent to which the automatic elicitation of action may be moderated by features of the task environment and perceivers' goal states. Our findings were unequivocal. When inhibitory cues were present in the environment (i.e., Experiment 1), or perceivers had a competing goal in mind (i.e., Experiment 2), automatic behavioral priming effects were eliminated. We consider the implications of our findings for recent treatments of behavioral priming and action control.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0032264105&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1521/soco.1998.16.4.400
DO - 10.1521/soco.1998.16.4.400
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0032264105
SN - 0278-016X
VL - 16
SP - 400
EP - 417
JO - Social Cognition
JF - Social Cognition
IS - 4
ER -