User:Airvine1991/Automaticity In Social Behaviour

Automaticity is the tendency of a psychological process, and resulting social behaviour, to be influenced by external stimuli, commonly occurring autonomously without awareness, intention or control (Bargh & Williams, 2006; Fiske & Taylor, 2013). Automaticity is thought to occur in degrees, where a process does not display all characteristics it may still be considered automatic (Bargh, 1989). Automaticity can be contrasted against controlled processes, in which the individual’s conscious intent influences how the process is carried out, tending to be effortful, flexible and limited by attentional resources (Fiske, 2013).

Characteristics of Automaticity
John Bargh used the analogy of four horseman to describe the characteristics of Automaticity, these are as follows:

Awareness
Bargh proposes that there are three ways in which we may remain unaware of a process. Firstly, the individual may be unaware of a stimulus (e.g. a subliminal prime hidden in a word list). Secondly, they could be unaware of the way in which a stimulus has been interpreted and processed (e.g. activation of a stereotype). Finally, awareness may not extend to factors that influence our behaviour, sometimes leading to misattributions (e.g. mistaking ease of memory retrieval for accuracy) (Bargh, 1994).

Intentionality
Intentionality - in addition to controllability - is viewed as the degree to which one is involved in the control of behaviour. Specifically, this describes whether we are in control of the instigation of the process. Automatic attention towards angry facial emotions, reported by Hansen and Hansen (1988) is described as an unintentional process.

Efficiency
This refers to the volume of attentional resources required for the process to occur. Automatic processes are often perceived as efficient, not being disrupted by co-occurring, attention demanding tasks or conditions. Using the example of facial emotion again, Tracy and Robins (2008) recorded recognition occurred swiftly and accurately, even under a significant cognitive load (restricting latency of display and response).

Controllability
Controllability is the extent to which one is aware of the effect of the stimulus on themselves and consequently their ability to regulate these processes after onset. Automaticity can be associated with a lack of control, for instance social judgements were effected efficiently by racial category and afrocentric facial features, but only in the latter case were the individuals unable to control the process (Blair, Judd & Fallman, 2004).