Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2007). Young children learning Spanish make rapid use of grammatical gender in spoken word recognition.

This paper summarizes research on determinants of repeated behaviors, and the decision processes underlying them. The present research focuses on travel mode choices as an example ofsuch behaviors. It is proposed that when behavior is performed repeatedly and becomes habitual, it is guided by automated cognitive processes, rather than being preceded by elaborate decision processes (i.e,, a decision based on attitudes and intentions). First, current attitude-behavior models are discussed, and the role of habit in these models is examined. Second, research is presented on the decision processes preceding travel mode choices. Based on the present theoretical and empirical overview, it is concluded that frequently performed behavior is often a matter of habit, thereby establishing a boundary condition for the applicability of attitude-behavior models. However, more systematic research is required to disentangle the role of habit in attitude-behavior models and to learn more about the cognitive processes underlying habitual behavior.Social psychology is concerned with gaining insight into the psychological antecedents of socially relevant behaviors and the processes underlying them. For instance, on a global level, investigators and practitioners attempt to understand the factors influencing individuals' decisions to engage in behaviors related to health (e.g., smoking, exercising), safety (e.g., following safety instructions at work, using seat belts), and the environment (e.g., recycling, using private cars) in order to prevent, promote, or change these behaviors. Indeed, in the last 25 years, considerable progress has been made in explaining and predicting the initiation of human behaviors as revealed by currently popular attitude-behavior models (e.g., Ajzen,

The authors tested and confirmed the hypothesis that priming a stereotype or trait leads to complex overt behavior in line with this activated stereotype or trait. Specifically, 4 experiments established that priming the stereotype of professors or the trait intelligent enhanced participants' performance on a scale measuring general knowledge. Also, priming the stereotype of soccer hooligans or the trait stupid reduced participants' performance on a general knowledge scale. Results of the experiments revealed (a) that prolonged priming leads to more pronounced behavioral effects and (b) that there is no sign of decay of the effects for at least 15 min. The authors explain their results by claiming that perception has a direct and pervasive impact on overt behavior (cf. J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996). Implications for human social behavior are discussed. I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.-Christopher Isherwood Some time ago, a few members of the Department of Social Psychology of the University of Nijmegen visited a soccer match. After they had parked their car, they walked the remaining mile to the stadium. The psychologists, behaving calmly and orderly as ever, were surrounded by hundreds of soccer fans and hooligans, many of whom were yelling and shouting. After some time, one of the members of the department engaged in somewhat unusual behavior. He saw an empty beer can, and, in what seemed to be an impulsive act, he kicked it as far away as possible. During the next few minutes, he and a slightly embarrassed colleague pondered on possible explanations. One explanation is that, upon seeing soccer hooligans, one may-without being aware of it-start to act like them. That is, the activation of the representation of soccer hooligans leads to the tendency to behave similarly. Recent research showed that this is indeed possible. The mere perception of a person or a group of persons triggers a mechanism producing the tendency to behave correspondingly. In a series of studies, Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996) demonstrated such unconscious and unintentional effects of perception on social behavior. It was established that priming someone with a trait (e.g., rudeness) or a stereotype (e.g., elderly, African American) indeed leads to

Recent studies have shown that mimicry occurs unintentionally and even among strangers. In the present studies, we investigated the consequences of this automatic phenomenon in order to learn more about the adaptive function it serves. In three studies, we consistently found that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. Participants who had been mimicked were more helpful and generous toward other people than were nonmimicked participants. These beneficial consequences of mimicry were not restricted to behavior directed toward the mimicker, but included behavior directed toward people not directly involved in the mimicry situation. These results suggest that the effects of mimicry are not simply due to increased liking for the mimicker, but are due to increased prosocial orientation in general.

Two experiments investigated predictions from social identity theory and relative deprivation theory regarding membership in low-status groups, using a 3 (legitimacy of low status) X 2 (permeability of group boundaries) X 2 (stability of group status) between-subjects design. Main dependent variables concerned in-group identification and individual and collective mobility attempts. Group members considered their low status more acceptable when it seemed legitimate. In Experiment 1 (N = 184), illegitimate assignment of low status to the Ss' group increased in-group identification. In Experiment 2 (N = 178), illegitimate allocation of individual Ss to a low-status group decreased group identification. Attempts to acquire higher status individually (individual mobility) or collectively (group mobility) were more strongly affected by prospects for status improvement than by legitimacy manipulations.

This article explores the links between implicit self-esteem and the automatic self (D. L. Paulhus, 1993). Across 4 studies, name letter evaluations were positively biased, confirming that implicit self-esteem is generally positive (A. G. Greenwald & M. R. Banaji, 1995). Study 1 found that this name letter bias was stable over a 4-week period. Study 2 found that positive bias for name letters and positive bias for birth date numbers were correlated and that both biases became inhibited when participants were induced to respond in a deliberative manner. Studies 3-4 found that implicit self-evaluations corresponded with self-reported self-evaluations, but only when participants were evaluating themselves very quickly (Study 3) or under cognitive load (Study 4). Together, these findings support the notion that implicit self-esteem phenomena are driven by self-evaluations that are activated automatically and without conscious self-reflection.

Three studies investigated the effect of encouraging participants to believe in an afterlife on the relationship between mortality salience and self-esteem striving. Participants were exposed to essays arguing either in favor of or against the existence of an afterlife, and reminded about death or a control topic. Mortality salience led to increased accuracy ratings of a positive personality description (Studies 1 and 2) and increased striving for and defense of values (Study 3) among participants who read the essay arguing against an afterlife, but not among participants who read the essay in favor of it. The implications for the terror management analysis of self-esteem, the appeal of immortality beliefs, and the interplay between self-esteem striving and spiritual pursuits are discussed.

A field experiment investigated the prediction and change in repeated behaviour in the domain of travel mode choices. Car use during seven days was predicted from habit strength (measured by self-reported frequency of past behaviour, as well as by a more covert measure based on personal scripts incorporating the behaviour), and antecedents of behaviour as conceptualized in the theory of planned behaviour (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and behavioural intention). Both habit measures predicted behaviour in addition to intention and perceived control. Significant habit x intention interactions indicated that intentions were only significantly related to behaviour when habit was weak, whereas no intention-behaviour relation existed when habit was strong. During the seven-day registration of behaviour, half of the respondents were asked to think about the circumstances under which the behaviour was executed. Compared to control participants, the behaviour of experimental participants was more strongly related to their previously expressed intentions. However, the habit-behaviour relation was unaffected. The results demonstrate that, although external incentives may increase the enactment of intentions, habits set boundary conditions for the applicability of the theory of planned behaviour.