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=Automaticity=

Automaticity is the term for unintentional mental processes which occur in everyday life. Processes that are automatic will operate by themselves without the need of our conscious attention and awareness, eventually becoming proceduralised through extensive repetition.

= Characteristics=

Set out by John Bargh (1994) the 'Four Horsemen' define the criteria for automatic behaviour. For a cognitive process to be considered ‘automatic’, it must possess at least one of the following characteristics;

Awareness

The person is unaware that the mental process is occurring. Automatic processes also do not interfere with other thought processes simultaneously with conscious thoughts or behaviours (Bargh, 1989).

Intentionally

The person is not consciously involved with the instigation of a mental process and thus the process is unintentional.

Efficiency

The process uses a small amount of mental resources allowing attention to be used for other tasks requiring conscious mental processing.

Controllability

The process is involuntary, and the individual does not have the ability to influence the behaviour or terminate it.

=Evidence=

 Priming 

Priming refers to particular mental knowledge representations found in memory, activated in contexts where associated stimuli are encountered (Bargh, Chen & Burrows, 1996). Priming is a non-conscious, unintentional process. Stereotypes, a form of priming,’ are considered to be activated automatically in the presence of features associated with a stereotyped group. This is often without one's intention or awareness, influencing perceptual judgments and behaviours (Sassenberg & Moskowitz, 2005). Graham and Lowery (2004) studied the effects of unconscious racial stereotypes of authoritative figures in the juvenile justice system by subliminally priming participants with words associated with racial stereotyping. It was found that individuals in the racial primed condition reported more negative trait ratings of the accused and endorsed harsher punishments as a result of the subconscious priming they had been exposed to.

Reading

Logan (1990) says that "People appear unaware to 'turn off' reading even when it is in their best interests to do so." Like automaticity, reading becomes a form of unconscious competence achieved as a result of continuous practice. A skilled reader can complete multiple tasks simultaneously. The reader is able to decipher words, understand the information of the subject matter and subsequently referred to existing knowledge, all without being consciously aware of the automatic nature of the process whilst being highly efficient at doing so (LaBerge & Samuels, 1997). Attention to particular stimuli, in this case reading material, causes retrieval of relevant knowledge in memory and the response, if strong enough, supports performance to become automatic. An example of this is the Stroop Task, where a word central in attention to the reader retrieves knowledge associated with it, including its pronunciation. The motor program used for pronunciation interferers with the motor program used for pronouncing the name of the colour, therefore prolonging reaction time (Logan, 1990)

Mimicking

Mimicry is the unintentional tendency to automatically perceive another person behaving in a certain way and consequently act in the same way (Chartrand, Cheng & Jeffris, 2002). An example of this was a study by Holland, Steenaert and van Kippenberg (2002) who found that when "a waitress verbally mimicked her customer's orders; she received more tips than when she did not mimic." Individuals are often oblivious to another person's subtle mannerisms and seemingly unaware that they mimic the mannerisms themselves. Therefore, it has been suggested that individuals automatically change their own 'colours' (i.e. behaviours' to adapt and blend with the environment they are in (‘Chameleon effect’).

=References=

Bargh, J. A. (1989). Conditional automaticity: Varieties of automatic influence in social perception and cognition. In J. S. Uleman & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), Unintended thought (pp. 3-51). New York: Guilford Press.

Bargh, J., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996) Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, (2), 230-244

Chartrand, T.L., Cheng, C.M. & Jefferis, V.E. (2002). You're just a chameleon: The automatic nature and social significance of mimicry. Natura automatyzmow (Nature of Automaticity), 19-24, Warszawa: IPPAN & SWPS

Graham, S., & Lowery, B. (2004). Priming unconscious racial stereotypes about adolescent offenders. Law And Human Behavior, 28 , (5), 483-504.

LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974).Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293-323.

Logan, G. (1990). Repetition priming and automaticity: Common underlying mechanisms? Cognitive Psychology, 22, (1), 1-35

Sassenberg, K., & Moskowitz, G. (2005). Don’t stereotype, think different! Overcoming automatic stereotype activation by mindset priming. ''Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41,''(5), 506-514.

van Baaren, R.B., Holland, R.W., Steenaert, B., & van Knippenberg (2002) Mimicry for money: behavioural consequences of imitation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 393–398