Replicable effects of primes on human behavior.

Payne, B. Keith; Brown-Iannuzzi, Jazmin L.; Loersch, Chris

doi:10.1037/xge0000201

Cited by 63 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…If applied intentionally, a cue could be processed more controlled than when used as a subtle prime. There is evidence that intention could even support a cue's influence, as primes can affect behavior through both automatic and controlled processes (Payne, Brown-Iannuzzi, & Loersch, 2016). Because losing weight is a long-term process, another question that arises is what would happen if cues are applied repeatedly.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A nudge in a healthier direction: How environmental cues help restrained eaters pursue their weight-control goal

2017

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Losing weight is a goal for many people, but it is hard to pursue. However, dieting cues in the environment hold promise for improving individuals' eating behavior. For example, exposure to thin, human-like sculptures by the artist Alberto Giacometti has been found to promote healthy snack choices at a vending machine. Whether health- or weight-related processes drive such effects has not yet been determined. However, a detailed understanding of the content-related drivers of environmental cues' effects provides the first indications regarding a cue's possible use. Therefore, two laboratory studies were conducted. They examined the Giacometti sculptures' effects on unhealthy and healthy food intake (Study 1) and on the completion of weight- and health-related fragmented words (Study 2). Study 1 indicated that the sculptures are weight-related by showing that they reduced food intake independent of food healthiness. Furthermore, the "Giacometti effect" was moderated by restrained eating. Restrained eaters, who are known for their weight-control goal, ate less after having been exposed to the thin sculptures. The results of Study 2 pointed in the same direction. Restrained eaters completed more weight-related words after being exposed to the sculptures. Overall, these studies suggest that the thin sculptures are primarily weight-related cues and particularly helpful for restrained eaters. Environmental weight-control cues such as the Giacometti sculptures could act as a counterforce to our obesogenic environment and help restrained eaters pursue their weight-control goal. In this way, they could nudge food decisions in a healthier direction.

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Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A nudge in a healthier direction: How environmental cues help restrained eaters pursue their weight-control goal

2017

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“…Supporting this view is a mountain of social psychological claims on the influence of automatic processes over beliefs and behavior of moral and social significance. For example, heuristics and biases (Kahneman 2011;Tversky and Kahneman 1974), implicit procedural learning (Cleeremans and Jimenez 2002), unconscious social priming (Payne et al 2016), subtle wording effects on voter turnout (Bryan et al 2011), growth mindset (Blackwell et al 2007), and stereotype threat (Steele and Aronson 1995) all appear to support, to one degree or other, what Bargh and Chartrand call the ''unbearable automaticity of being''.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit attitudes and the ability argument

Buckwalter¹

2018

Philos Stud

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According to one picture of the mind, decisions and actions are largely the result of automatic cognitive processing beyond our ability to control. This picture is in tension with a foundational principle in ethics that moral responsibility for behavior requires the ability to control it. The discovery of implicit attitudes contributes to this tension. According to the ability argument against moral responsibility, if we cannot control implicit attitudes, and implicit attitudes cause behavior, then we cannot be morally responsible for that behavior. The purpose of this paper is to refute the ability argument. Drawing on both scientific evidence in cognitive science and philosophical arguments in ethics and action theory, I argue that it is invalid and unsound because current evidence is insufficient to establish the premises that (1) implicit attitudes are uncontrollable, (2) that they significantly cause behavior, (3) that responsibility always requires ability, and (4) that even if uncontrollable attitudes did fully cause behavior, this entails that the behavior they cause is uncontrollable. The rejection of the ability argument questions the priority of the unconscious over the conscious mind in cognitive science, deprioritizes ability in theories of moral responsibility in ethics, and provides a strong reason to uphold moral responsibility for implicitly biased behavior.

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“…Taken together, it appears that goals can be activated outside of awareness. We assume that these are small effects (Molden 2014;Payne et al, 2016); we advocate for more high-powered replications and greater research into the conditions under which these effects are most and least likely to occur (Molden, 2014).…”

Section: Nonconscious Goal Pursuitmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…35; 95% CI [.29, .41]; Weingarten et al, 2015) and theoretical ones (if the effects of primes were reliably large, we would be slaves to the magnetic pull of our mental associations between quotidian objects and our actions; for discussion of both methodological and theoretical factors that predict behavioral priming effects, see Payne, Brown-Iannuzzi, & Loersch, 2016). Nonetheless, we want to highlight that there is still much remaining evidence for the broader claims at stake in the priming literature, specifically that our behavior can be guided by processes that we are not aware of (see, e.g., Sheeran, Gollwitzer, & Bargh, 2013).…”

Section: Provoked Confabulation In Nonclinical Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why did I do that? Explaining actions activated outside of awareness

et al. 2017

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We review the latest research investigating how people explain their own actions when they have been activated nonconsciously. We will discuss evidence that when nonconsciously activated behavior is unexpected (e.g., normviolating, against self -standards), negative affect arises and triggers confabulations aimed to explain the behavior. Nonconsciously activated behaviors may provide a window into everyday confabulation of (erroneous) explanations for behavior, which may also affect self-knowledge. Implications for self-concept formation and intentionality are discussed.Keywords Confabulation . Explanatory vacuum . Nonconscious goal pursuit . PrimingWe frequently answer questions about why we acted the way we did. BWhy did you take that job?^BWhy did you vote for that candidate?^In many cases, the real answers to these questions may never come to light because we have little introspective access to the mental processes that led to our choices and behaviors (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). As a result, the explanations that people provide are (at least in part) confabulations, Bbased on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response^(p. 231). In this article, we will review the evidence that people confabulate explanations for their own behavior. We will emphasize instances in which the behavior to be explained was triggered automatically-by incidental cues in the environmentwhere there is emerging evidence that confabulations can both be provoked (when an experimenter asks for an explanation) and arise spontaneously (when the automatic behavior triggers negative affect by virtue of being unexpected).Do people really generate spontaneous confabulatory explanations for their behavior? In everyday life it is often difficult (or impossible) to assess the relationship between the origin of a given behavior and a person's explanation for performing that very same behavior. As a result, one challenge for researchers to understand these confabulated explanations for behavior is to identify contexts in which relevant causes are known. As we will review, some research directly asks people to explain their behavior, yielding evidence for provoked confabulations in both clinical and nonclinical settings. Recent research has used behaviors activated outside of awareness as a case in which researchers may further understand when and in what contexts people confabulate reasons for their behavior, not only when provoked but also spontaneously.Historically, explanations were shown to be erroneous (i.e., confabulatory) in a clinical context. Confabulations were classified as a disorder of memory (Hirstein, 2005) and related to delusions (Turner & Coltheart, 2010). In these cases, the content of the confabulation is verifiably false-a patient might describe a distant memory as a recent event. But as we will review, this behavior is not limited to clinical samples and there may be very little observable difference between confabulation and ...

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Replicable effects of primes on human behavior.

Cited by 63 publications

References 62 publications

A nudge in a healthier direction: How environmental cues help restrained eaters pursue their weight-control goal

A nudge in a healthier direction: How environmental cues help restrained eaters pursue their weight-control goal

Implicit attitudes and the ability argument

Why did I do that? Explaining actions activated outside of awareness

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