„For they do not know what they do“: Automatic Influences on Behavior

1. „For they do not know what they do“: Automatic Influences on Behavior Prof. Dr. Roland Neumann Universität Dortmund

2. Overview 1. Introduction 2. Stereotypes and Behavior 3. An Explanation 4. Implications 5. Beyond Stereotyping 6. Summary

3. Free Will • most modern psychologists assume that we consciously will our own action. • I will review evidence showing that many parameters of our behavior are automatically influenced. • Free will as a post hoc construction (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Wegner, 2003)?. Roland Neumann

4. Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) • Presented an alleged test of language ability test. Use five listed words to construct a grammatically correct four word sentence. • Participants were exposed to words that were either related to rudeness, politeness or to neutral words. • Following the completion of the language test participants were required to meet the experimenter in the hallway in order to get their next task. The experimenter was engaged in a lively conversation with a confederate. Roland Neumann

5. Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) Roland Neumann

6. Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) • Priming of traits that are related to the American Stereotype about elderly (Florida, Bingo, worried, old, wrinkle, conservative etc.). • After completing the language task participants were thank for participating in the study. • Dependent variable: The time participants needed to walk to the elevator. Roland Neumann

7. Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) Roland Neumann

8. Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) • Faces of either African Americans or of Caucasian faces were subliminally presented. • Extremely boring task (counting circles on the computer screen. • Facial expressions was recorded while being frustrated. Roland Neumann

9. Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) F11 Error: Failure saving data After 130 trials.... “I’m sorry, but it looks like you’ll have to do the experiment over again” Roland Neumann

10. Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) Roland Neumann

11. Pendry & Carrick (2001) • Participants describes a day in the life of a “punk” or a day in the life of an “accountant” (control: no description). • Similar to Asch’s study, participants are then exposed to cards with lines of different length. The task is to say out loud which lines are similar. Roland Neumann

12. Pendry & Carrick (2001) “Punk” primed participants conformed less than the “accountant” primed participants with the “no prime” condition lying in between. Roland Neumann

13. Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998) • Participants wrote down either typical attributes of professors or typical attributes of secretaries. In the control condition participants were not primed. • Subsequently, 42 Trivial Pursuit Questions have to be solved (What is the capital of Bangla Desh? a) Dhaka b) Bangkok c) Hanoi d) Dehli). Roland Neumann

14. Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998) Roland Neumann

15. Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998) • Participants described a typical soccer hooligan for either 2 or for 9 minutes. • 60 Trivial Pursuit questions. Roland Neumann

16. Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998) Roland Neumann

17. Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998) • Participants were either primed with stereotypes (professor vs. hooligan) or traits (intelligent vs. stupid). Roland Neumann

18. Stereotypes about Politicians? Roland Neumann

19. Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (2000) • Half of the participants activated the stereotype about politicians in a priming task (scrambled sentences procedure). • Subsequently, they were asked to write an essay against the French nuclear testing in the Pacific (1996). • After the activation of the stereotype about politicians the essays were considerably longer than those in the control condition. Roland Neumann

20. Representation of Stereotypes traditional negative Bavarians conservative thirsty fun-loving stuborn Roland Neumann

21. Dual Processing Model automatic controlled Stereotype Belief criminal loud islamistic ... not criminal not loud not islamistic ... Behavior Behavior

22. Dijksterhuis, Aarts, Bargh & van Knippenberg (2000) • The frequency of prior exposures to a group determines the strength of associations among the representation of the group in memory and the perceived traits. Roland Neumann

23. Emotionale Ansteckung Dijksterhuis, Aarts, Bargh & van Knippenberg (2000) Study 1:The perfor-mance in a memory task of nurses for the elderly was lower than for persons with infrequent contact to elderly persons. Roland Neumann

24. Emotionale Ansteckung Dijksterhuis, Aarts, Bargh & van Knippenberg (2000) Studie 2: This effect was mediated by associative strength: • Participants with frequent contact had a stronger association between “elderly” and “ “forgetful” • The stronger the association the more the memory performance was impaired. Roland Neumann

25. Anderson & Dill (2000) • Participants responded to a provocation much more aggressive after playing a hostile video game (Wolfenstein 3 D) than after a video game that stresses competition (Myst). Roland Neumann

26. Levy (1996) • Elderly participants were primed with either positive (wise, experienced) or negative (senile, dementia) terms associated with elderly. • Subsequently, they were asked to perform several memory tasks. • Those primed with positive terms exhibited a better memory performance than those primed with negative terms. Roland Neumann

27. Stereotype Threat • Herrnstein & Murray (1995): „The Bell Curve“ Differences in intelligence between African- and European Americans are due to genetic dispostions. • Steele & Aronson (1995): The „framing“of a test matters: African- and European Americans participated in an intelligence test (diagnostic) vs. in a nonevaluative problem solving test (nondiagnostic). Roland Neumann

28. Stereotype Threat Roland Neumann

29. Stereotype Threat • Women and math (Spencer, Steele & Quinn, 1999). • Asians and math (Shih, Pittinsky & Ambady, 1999). • African- vs. European Americans and Sports (Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling & Darley, 1999). • Low socioeconomic background and intellectual performance (Croizet & Claire, 1998). • Women and negotiations (Kray, Thompson & Galinsky, 2001). Roland Neumann

30. Stereotype Threat • Claude Steele:”Members of stereotyped groups feel an extra pressure in situations where their behavior can confirm the negative view that their group lacks a valued ability”. • Is it possible to permanently reduce the racial achievement gap in a real-life context? Roland Neumann

31. Stereotype Threat • Cohen, et al. (2006): African- and European American students confirmed their ideals in an essay (15 minutes). • Writing the essay improved grades of African American students (but not of European American students) and reduced the racial achievement gap by 40%. Roland Neumann

32. Stereotype Threat Cohen, Garcia, Apfel & Master (2006). Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psycho-logical Inter-vention. Science, 313, 1307-1310. Roland Neumann

33. Beyond Stereotypes Dan Wegner • Expression – “think of a white bear” • Suppression – “do not think of a white bear” • Distraction –“please try to think of a red Volkswagen.” Roland Neumann

34. Beyond Stereotypes Roland Neumann

35. Beyond Stereotypes • Alcohol - ”avoid to drink beer” • Anxiety – “avoid being fearful” • Depression –“avoid thinking of the lost person” • Nutrition –”try to eat no unhealthy food today” Roland Neumann

36. Wegner, Ansfield & Pilloff (1998) Roland Neumann

37. Holland, Hendriks & Aarts (2005) • One half of the participants was unobtrusively exposed to citrus scented all purposed cleaner whereas the other half of the participants was not. • Those exposed to the cleaner responded faster to words in a lexical decision task that were related to the citrus scent. • Participants exposed to the cleaner kept their environment cleaner than those in the control group. Roland Neumann

38. Summary • Behavior hinges on an interaction of automatic and deliberate processes. • Our environment exerts an influence on the automatic processes. • This has implications for aggression, stereo-type threat and many other phenomena. Roland Neumann