The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment. The authors suggest that the mechanism involved is Has. perception-behavior link, the recently documented finding (e.g., J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996) that the mere perception of another's behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself. Experiment 1 showed that the motor behavior of participants unintentionally matched that of strangers with whom they worked on a task. Experiment 2 had confederates mimic the posture and movements of participants and showed that mimicry facilitates the smoothness of interactions and increases liking between interaction partners. Experiment 3 showed that dispositionally empathic individuals exhibit the chameleon effect to a greater extent than do other people. He looked about his surroundings. They had become so familiar to him that, without realizing it, he was beginning to take on some of the mannerisms of the people who lived there.-Georges Simenon, Maigret and the Toy Village

Previous research has shown that trait concepts and stereotypes become active automatically in the presence of relevant behavior or stereotyped-group features. Through the use of the same priming procedures as in previous impression formation research, Experiment l showed that participants whose concept of rudeness was primed interrupted the experimenter more quickly and frequently than did participants primed with polite-related stimuli. In Experiment 2, participants for whom an elderly stereotype was primed walked more slowly down the hallway when leaving the experiment than did control participants, consistent with the content of that stereotype. In Experiment 3, participants for whom the African American stereotype was primed subliminally reacted with more hostility to a vexatious request of the experimenter. Implications of this automatic behavior priming effect for self-fulfilling prophecies are discussed, as is whether social behavior is necessarily mediated by conscious choice processes.For many years, social psychologists have studied the effects of priming on the individual's subsequent impressions of others. Priming refers to the incidental activation of knowledge structures, such as trait concepts and stereotypes, by the current situational context. Many studies have shown that the recent use of a trait construct or stereotype, even in an earlier or unrelated situation, carries over for a time to exert an unintended, passive influence on the interpretation of behavior (see Bargh, 1994;Higgins, 1989;Wyer & Srull, 1989, for reviews).We argue here that such passive, automatic effects of priming need not be limited to social perception. Recent research has shown that attitudes and other affective reactions can be triggered automatically by the mere presence of relevant objects and events, so that evaluation and emotion join perception in the realm of direct, unmediated psychological effects of the environment (see Bargh, 1994, in press, for reviews). But assuming that behavioral responses to situations are also represented mentally, as are stereotypes and attitudes, they should also be capable of becoming automatically activated, by the same principles that govern the development of automaticity of other representations.

It is proposed that goals can be activated outside of awareness and then operate nonconsciously to guide self-regulation effectively (J. A. Bargh, 1990). Five experiments are reported in which the goal either to perform well or to cooperate was activated, without the awareness of participants, through a priming manipulation. In Experiment 1 priming of the goal to perform well caused participants to perform comparatively better on an intellectual task. In Experiment 2 priming of the goal to cooperate caused participants to replenish a commonly held resource more readily. Experiment 3 used a dissociation paradigm to rule out perceptual-construal alternative explanations. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated that action guided by nonconsciously activated goals manifests two classic content-free features of the pursuit of consciously held goals. Nonconsciously activated goals effectively guide action, enabling adaptation to ongoing situational demands.We must give up the insane illusion that a conscious self, however virtuous and however intelligent, can do its work singlehanded and without assistance. -Aldous Huxley, The Education of an AmphibianToday, most theories of goal pursuit emphasize conscious choice and guidance of behavior on a moment-to-moment basis (e.g

What was noted by E. J. hanger (1978) remains true today: that much of contemporary psychological research is based on the assumption that people are consciously and systematically processing incoming information in order to construe and interpret their world and to plan and engage in courses of action. As did E. J. hanger, the authors question this assumption. First, they review evidence that the ability to exercise such conscious, intentional control is actually quite limited, so that most of moment-to-moment psychological life must occur through nonconscious means if it is to occur at all. The authors then describe the different possible mechanisms that produce automatic, environmental control over these various phenomena and review evidence establishing both the existence of these mechanisms as well as their consequences for judgments, emotions, and behavior. Three major forms of automatic self-regulation are identified: an automatic effect of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of one's experience. From the accumulating evidence, the authors conclude that these various nonconscious mental systems perform the lion's share of the self-regulatory burden, beneficently keeping the individual grounded in his or her current environment.The strongest knowledge-that of the total unfreedom of the human will-is nonetheless the poorest in successes, for it always has the strongest opponent: human vanity.-Nietzsche, Human, All

Research on automatic attitude activation has documented a pervasive tendency to nonconsciously classify most if not all incoming stimuli as either good or bad. Two experiments tested a functional explanation for this effect. The authors hypothesized that automatic evaluation results directly in behavioral predispositions toward the stimulus, such that positive evaluations produce immediate approach tendencies, and negative evaluations produce immediate avoidance tendencies. Par ticipants responded to attitude object stimuli either by pushing or by pulling a lever. Consistent with the hypothesis, participants were faster to respond to negatively valenced stimuli when pushing the lever away (avoid) than when pulling it toward them (approach) but were faster to respond to positive stimuli by pulling than by pushing the lever. This pattern held even when evaluation of the stimuli was irrelevant to the participants conscious task. The automatic classification of stimuli as either good or bad appears to have direct behavioral consequences.