The silence of the library: Environment, situational norm, and social behavior.

Abstract

On the basis of the idea that situational norms are mentally represented as associations between environments and normative behavior, it was proposed that an environment can automatically direct normative behavior. More specifically, when situational norms are well-established (e.g., when entering the library, one should be silent), an environment is capable of automatically activating mental representations of normative behavior and the behavior itself. In these experiments, participants were exposed to pictures of environments, and effects on accessibility of representations of normative behavior and on actual behavior were assessed. Results indicated that representations of behavior and actual behavior itself are activated automatically when (a) goals to visit the environment are active and (b) strong associations between environment and normative behavior are established.

On the nature and importance of cultural tightness-looseness.

“…There are well-developed measures of many of these constructs that can be adapted for cross-cultural research (see Higgins, Friedman, & Harlow, 2001, Seeley and Gardner 2003, and Kirton, 1976, for measures of prevention and promotion focus, regulatory strength, and cognitive styles, respectively). Cross-cultural differences in accessibility of normative requirements can be measured through nonobtrusive measures including reaction times (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003).…”

What have we been priming all these years? On the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior

“…Not many of us would be surprised, I suspect, if-had the experimental task been, say, choice of a vacation destination-more participants in the backpack condition chose an outdoors or wilderness experience while those in the briefcase condition were more likely to choose a trip to an exciting metropolitan city. Or, in the case of the 'norm priming' study of Aarts and Dijksterhuis (2003) in which exposing participants to pictures of a library caused them to speak more quietly thereafter, had the dependent variable of interest been how studious is a given target person (social perception), or how much they would pay for an interesting paperback book (evaluation), would we be that surprised by those findings.…”

“…Because there are other responses primed as well. The situational norm or goal of helping someone so clearly in need (cite) would also be activated (see Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003;Hertel & Kerr, 2001, for examples of norm priming), and dominate the nonmotivational, behavior priming influence. Macrae and Johnston (1998) were the first to pit such competing priming influences against each other; participants were primed with helping related stimuli and were then presented, in the elevator leaving the experimental session, with a chance to help.…”

“…Social norms (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003;Hertel & Kerr, 2001) to guide or channel behavior within the situation; goals to achieve high performance, to cooperate with an opponent, or to be fair minded and egalitarian (Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Troetschel, 2001;Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel, & Schaal, 1999); emotions that shape our reactions and responses to subsequent, unrelated stimuli (Lerner, Small, & Loewenstein, 2004); and of course, knowledge structures such as stereotypes and trait constructs for use in the comprehension and encoding of often ambiguous social behavior (see Bargh, 1989;Higgins, 1996, for reviews). And social behavior itself can be produced nonconsciously in the same fashion (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996;Chartrand & Bargh, 1999;Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg, 1998 Still more recently, though, priming effects of even greater complexity have been discovered, such as in the nonconscious activation of deep cultural ideologies (Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 1999;Nisbett, 2003;Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) and other interpersonal relations (e.g., power differentials; Smith & Trope, in press) that seem to alter even basic (i.e., non-social) information processing; as well as representations of close relationship partners with their demonstrated variety of self-regulatory effects (Fitzsimons & Bargh, 2003;Shah & Kruglanski, 2003).…”

“…Not many of us would be surprised, I suspect, if-had the experimental task been, say, choice of a vacation destination-more participants in the backpack condition chose an outdoors or wilderness experience while those in the briefcase condition were more likely to choose a trip to an exciting metropolitan city. Or, in the case of the 'norm priming' study of Aarts and Dijksterhuis (2003) in which exposing participants to pictures of a library caused them to speak more quietly thereafter, had the dependent variable of interest been how studious is a given target person (social perception), or how much they would pay for an interesting paperback book (evaluation), would we be that surprised by those findings.Similarly, priming representations of one's relationship partners has recently been shown to influence the participant's goal-directed behavior-but in one study, it is the goals and standards of the other person (e.g., your mother) for you that become active (Shah & Kruglanski, 2003) and in another study, it is the goals you typically have when with that person (Fitzsimons & Bargh, 2003). But note how this means that these primes are still having all of …”