How social perception can

automatically influence
behavior
Ferguson & Barg (2004).
 Automatic social
knowledge activation

 Social knowledge is activated during perceptions of stimuli.

- Social information: activated spontaneously & immediately in our

memory when we perceive our environment.

- research shows this automatic knowledge shapes impressions,

judgments, feelings, & intentions without our awareness.

Ferguson & Bargh’s Review

 Variety of studies providing evidence of different sources of information

that can influence behavior, esp. social behavior.
 Social knowledge can be perceived in these modalities:
-traits
-stereotypes
-observed behaviors of others
-context information
Unconscious impressions  outward behaviors

 Unawareness at different levels:

- Perception 
-Judgement: Categorize information 
-Influenced Behavior

 Many traditionally assume complex behavior (ex: social interaction) is not

influenced by this unconscious process.
 Experimental social psychology has challenged this view.
 Widely held view because origin is in rational-choice theories of behavior &
humanistic tradition of psychology.
- “People weigh their behavioral options & choose the optimal one.”
Mirror neurons?

 Perception and subsequent behavior are believed to be this closely linked

based on studies in primates & humans.
- It’s been found that in Macaque monkeys & humans, same area premotor
cortex is active when they perceive an action & when they perform that action
themselves.
 Studies on human mimicry have found perceiving certain actions can lead
to the performance of those actions.
- Evidence that people have imitative behavior from infancy onward:
mimicking facial expressions, speech of conversation partners, ex: slang and
jargon.
…But these are simple behaviors.
How complex are the behaviors that
can be influenced?
 We know people can adopt an accent, for example, will they mimic behavioral

traits they are semantically exposed to, such as trait aggression?

 3 Studies investigated whether complex social behavior influences participants

by priming them without their awareness on the concepts of:

1. Rudeness.

2. Slowness as a stereotype about the elderly.

3. Hostility as a stereotype of African Americans.

 Results: Concordant behaviors.

More complex influenced behaviors
 To go beyond walking speed & hostility, study primed participants with
either the trait of intelligence or stupidity then gave a general knowledge
test.
-Intelligence primed subjects significantly outperformed stupidity primed ones.
 Note: participants in priming studies are evaluated on their awareness of
priming.

Additional modalities of information

 Perceived actions performed by others. Studies showed that people will
likely shake their foot or touch their face when their conversation partner
does.
Counter to this pattern

 Individuals were exposed to behaviors of high or low social status, ex:

maintaining a posture of dominance, opposing behaviors were observed.
- Probing at the end confirmed lack of awareness of own or other’s posture, or this
connection.

Context as a modality
 Study primed subs. by imagining being in the context of large groups:
- Opportunity to help: Bystander effect.
 Context of a library imagined:
- Quieter reading
Incidental knowledge

 If participants were primed about the concept of elderly people before

performing a memory task:
- Divergent results based on the knowledge they previously had.
- Experience would dictate strength of this association: elderly  bad memory

 Incidental knowledge can encompass any situation we were recently

exposed to, and therefore may be constantly influencing our unconscious
frame of reference for how we behave.
Future directions

 Future research will focus on actual mechanisms that separate conscious

intention & actual behavior.
 Neurological explanations can provide possible explanations:
- Ex: Evidence shows basic dissociations in the human brain between the
regions dealing with complex motor behavior and the regions that give
conscious access to our intentions and purposes.
Reference

 Ferguson, M. J., & Bargh, J. A. (2004). How social perception can

automatically influence behavior. Trends in cognitive sciences, 8(1), 33-39.