Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action

John A. Bargh, Mark Chen, Lara Burrows · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · 1996 · social-psychology · 10.1037/0022-3514.71.2.230 · record bargh1996-social
tag layer · index · concepts · authors · עברית
Where this record's text came from. faceted 2026-08 by reading the locally held text (pdftext); every evidence string verified as an exact substring of that text before merging. Replication status is set to 'replicated' on the paper's own internal evidence only - it states verbatim 'Experiment 2b is a replication of 2a.' and reports the elderly-walking effect again in that second sample. This is a same-lab internal replication reported within the article, not independent external replication; the record should not be read as evidence about the later literature. Claim type is 'existence' rather than 'mechanism' because the article's own summary sentence asserts that the effect occurs, with the perception-behaviour link and situationally-linked-behaviour accounts offered afterwards as two rival explanations the data do not decide between. Several further named-work discussions (Devine's two-stage model, Wegner's ironic process model, Bem 1972) are literature review rather than statements relating this paper's results to them, so no relation was recorded for them. 2026-08-19 and 2026-08-25 schema-0.3 passes: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.
How to read this page. The article itself is not reproduced here — this paper is not cleared for redistribution, so what follows is the tag layer alone. The evidence sentences are withheld with the article. The table at the foot lists every tag the record carries; each row names the facet it belongs to, and the whose words column says whether the tag records the paper's own wording or the tagger's sentence about the paper. Every tag links to each other paper in the corpus carrying it. The machine-readable edition of the same thing is the TEI file beside this one, where the tags live in standOff, and the article is at its publisher via the link below. When we have changed our mind. Some entries in the table begin with a word in capitals and the reason for it. EVIDENCE CORRECTED — the finding still stands, but we had quoted the wrong sentence from the paper, and the quotation has been replaced with the right one. RETRACTED — the entry itself was wrong; it stays on the page, marked, with the reason, rather than being deleted. WITHDRAWN AND REPLACED — the entry was wrong, and a corrected version of it appears in the entries below. Each mark carries its own reason, in brackets, because the reasons differ from one entry to the next. An entry we have WITHDRAWN is removed from this page and kept in the record, with its reason. A line reading Audit and a date is a later re-reading of the entry against its whole sentence: DOUBTFUL means it was kept, and the reason says what is loose about it. Quotation marks inside the tagger's sentence. Where a tag is the tagger's own sentence, a phrase in quotation marks inside it is borrowed from the paper — the tagger's wording around it is not. The paper's own sentence is the evidence quote for that row; on this page it is withheld with the article, and the article is at its publisher. Nothing inside quotation marks anywhere on this page is ours: if it is quoted, it is the paper's. Whose words a concept carries. A concept entry records a term the paper itself uses, so the term, the sense given for it, and its evidence are the paper's own words, quoted where the paper fixes them. This is the opposite of a sense entry in the tag table, which is the tagger's sentence about how the paper uses a term. Where a concept entry could not be grounded in the paper's words, the entry says so on its own row.
Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
behavior 4 fields · priming 2 fields · statistical-significance 2 fields · variance 2 fields

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 10 concept tags on this paper, 4 are grounded in a quoted sentence. 3 carry the tagger's gloss of what the term means in this paper, which is not something the article can license.
priming social priming stereotype activation automaticity association secondariness modulation trait construct stereotype behavior automatic behavior priming (perception-behavior link): activating a trait or stereotype concept directly and unconsciously increases the tendency to act in line with it social behavior activation unconscious impression formation self-fulfilling prophecies social perception behavioral response ANOVA hypothesis-testing hypothesis tested mean average of p-value statistical-significance t-test variance behavioural-experiment

Legend

relation to other workclaim_relationshow this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies
claim typeclaim_typethe shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
concept edgeconcept_edgesan asserted relation between two concepts, with the sentence asserting it
conceptconceptsan idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
content tagcontent_tagsa finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper
controlcontrolsan experiment run to eliminate a rival explanation
limitationlimitationswhat the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanismmechanismshow the reported effect is said to come about
methodmethodhow the paper produced its evidence
phenomenonphenomenonthe effect or regularity under study
sensesensesa distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it

The paper

The full text is not reproduced here. This article is not cleared for redistribution, so the page carries the tag layer only. Its evidence sentences are withheld; the grounding status remains with each tag, and the article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.2.230. The reading view exists for the papers whose licence permits it.

Every tag on this page

claim_relations 4 · claim_type 1 · concept_edges 2 · concepts 4 · content_tags 18 · controls 2 · limitations 3 · mechanisms 1 · method 1 · phenomenon 1 · senses 4

Relations on this page carry a quotation for the claim. Where a relation was separately evidenced — and so tested against the vocabulary for its type — the row says so; none of 2 relations here carry that mark. The rest are the tagger’s reading of the sentence quoted beside them.

facettagfieldconf.whose words
claim_typeexistence
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claim_typethe paper's words
phenomenonautomatic social behavior priming
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phenomenonthe paper's words
methodbehavioural-experiment
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methodthe paper's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[0]the tagger's words
limitationsThe paper describes itself as a first demonstration whose boundary conditions are not yet known.
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limitations[0]the tagger's words
limitationsThe Experiment 1 timing measure suffered from a severe ceiling effect because most participants never interrupted.
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limitations[1]the tagger's words
limitationsThe authors concede the strength of behavioural versus judgemental priming effects cannot really be compared across their situations.
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limitations[2]the tagger's words
controlsthe priming condition was assigned by a SECOND EXPERIMENTER who had no contact with the participant
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eliminates: that the experimenter who ran the session knew the condition and shaped the behaviour being measured - the classic experimenter-expectancy route to a priming effect · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held
controls[0]0.95the tagger's words
controlsparticipants were partially debriefed and questioned about whether they thought the scrambled-sentence task had influenced them
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eliminates: that participants worked out the manipulation and complied with what they took to be the hypothesis · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held
controls[1]0.95the tagger's words
conceptspriming
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also in: priming
concepts[0]the paper's words
conceptstrait construct
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concepts[7]0.95the paper's words
conceptsstereotype
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also in: stereotype
concepts[8]0.95the paper's words
conceptsbehavior
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also in: behavior
concepts[9]0.95the paper's words
sensesPRIMING DEFINED AS AN ORDINARY FEATURE OF BEING SOMEWHERE: `Quotation withheld.` Not a laboratory operation - a description of what situations do to people continuously, of which the experiment is a controlled instance. That is the same move srull-wyer1979 makes when it says accessibility rises with the number of activations `in the past`, and it is what licenses generalising from a word-scramble task to walking down a corridor
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senses[0]0.95the tagger's words
sensesTHE DESIGN LOGIC IN ONE SENTENCE: `Quotation withheld.` Only the dependent measure changed. The manipulation is held constant against the 1977-79 accessibility work and the outcome is swapped from a judgement to an action - which makes this a claim about the SCOPE of an established effect rather than a new effect. And it means the replication debate about this paper is unavoidably also about higgins1977 and srull-wyer1979, both of which are in this corpus
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senses[1]0.95the tagger's words
sensesTHE EFFECT TAKES THE CONTENT OF WHAT WAS PRIMED, WHICH IS WHAT RULES OUT AROUSAL OR MOOD: rudeness produced interrupting `more quickly and frequently`, the elderly stereotype produced walking `more slowly down the hallway ... consistent with the content of that stereotype`, and the third prime produced hostility. Three primes, three different behaviours, each matching its own prime - a general activation account predicts one direction for all three and gets none of them
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senses[2]0.95the tagger's words
sensesAND TWO THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ARE OFFERED WITH NEITHER CHOSEN. First, situationally linked behaviour: `a person has behavioral responses (e.g., assertiveness, anger, patience) that are associatively linked to particular situations.` Then: `another theoretical perspective CONSISTENT WITH the present findings is that of an AUTOMATIC PERCEPTION-BEHAVIOR LINK.` Both are said to fit and the paper stops there. dijksterhuis1998, tagged one record earlier, takes the second and builds on it - so the corpus holds the fork and the branch that was taken
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senses[3]0.95the tagger's words
claim_relationsextends → priming research on social perception
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claim_relations[0]the tagger's words
claim_relationsextends → Berkowitz and LePage (1967) and Carver et al. (1983)
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claim_relations[1]the tagger's words
claim_relationsbuilds-on → Carver et al. (1983) behavioral schema model
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claim_relations[2]the tagger's words
claim_relationsreplicates → Devine (1989, Experiment 2)
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claim_relations[3]the tagger's words
concept_edgestrait construct —causes→ behavior
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direction on the measure: increases · strength of the relation: 0.9 · note: 'consistent with it' AND 'subsequent unrelated context' ARE BOTH IN THE QUOTE AND BOTH ARE LOAD-BEARING. The behaviour matches the CONTENT of what was primed, which excludes a general arousal account; and the second context is UNRELATED, which is what makes it a carry-over rather than a demand effect. Weight 0.9: the discussion's opening summary of three experiments, and this is the paper's central claim.
concept_edges[0]0.95the tagger's words
concept_edgesstereotype —causes→ behavior
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direction on the measure: increases · strength of the relation: 0.9 · note: 'increases' MEANS MORE STEREOTYPE-CONSISTENT BEHAVIOUR, NOT MORE OF ANY MEASURED QUANTITY, AND THE DISTINCTION MATTERS HERE. In Experiment 2 the measurement WENT DOWN - participants primed with 'elderly' WALKED MORE SLOWLY. A reader taking 'increases' as 'the number went up' would have that experiment backwards. The axis is recording consistency with the primed content, which is what the quote says, and the three experiments move three different dependent variables in three directions.
also in: stereotype · behavior
concept_edges[1]0.95the tagger's words
content_tags3 — studies of behavior priming reported
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about this quote: marked quote-not-in-current-staged-text - today's merge gate would REFUSE this quote: Paper.locate() does not find it in the current staged text, and no disclosure on the row explains why. Update, 15 September 2026: CLEARED evidence status='quote-not-in-current-staged-text' - the quote was replaced (RE-CUT) and the new quote locates exactly once in the current staged text.
content_tags.quantities[0]the tagger's words
content_tags2 — span of automaticity research reviewed
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content_tags.quantities[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsrudeness-primed participants interrupted more quickly and frequently
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content_tags.findings[0]the tagger's words
content_tagselderly-stereotype-primed participants walked more slowly
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content_tags.findings[1]the tagger's words
content_tagssubliminal race-stereotype priming increased hostility
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content_tags.findings[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsattitudes activate automatically on mere presence of the object
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about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted.
content_tags.findings[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsbehavioral response
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content_tags.variables[1]the tagger's words
content_tagspriming
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also in: priming
content_tags.definitions[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsautomaticity
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about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted.
also in: automaticity
content_tags.definitions[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsstereotype activation
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content_tags.definitions[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsself-fulfilling prophecies
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content_tags.definitions[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsANOVA
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also in: ANOVA
content_tags.statistics[0]the tagger's words
content_tagshypothesis-testing
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about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted.
content_tags.statistics[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsmean
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about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted.
also in: mean
content_tags.statistics[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsp-value
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also in: p-value
content_tags.statistics[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsstatistical-significance
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content_tags.statistics[4]the tagger's words
content_tagst-test
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about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted.
also in: t-test
content_tags.statistics[5]the tagger's words
content_tagsvariance
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also in: variance
content_tags.statistics[6]the tagger's words

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