Effects of Subliminal Priming of Self and God on Self-Attribution of Authorship for Events

Three studies investigated how subliminally primed thoughts of an agent prior to action can affect ascriptions of authorship for that action. Participants competed against a computer program to remove words from a computer screen. Participants reported greater feelings of authorship when primed with first person singular pronouns, and lower feelings of authorship when primed with “computer.” We also investigated whether authorship feelings could be affected by priming subjects with a supernatural agent (i.e., God). Feelings of authorship decreased when participants were primed with God, but only among believers.Psycholog

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

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

Effects of subliminal priming of self and God on self-attribution of authorship for events

Three studies investigated how subliminally primed thoughts of an agent prior to action can affect ascriptions of authorship for that action. Participants competed against a computer program to remove words from a computer screen. Participants reported greater feelings of authorship when primed with first person singular pronouns, and lower feelings of authorship when primed with “computer.” We also investigated whether authorship feelings could be affected by priming subjects with a supernatural agent (i.e., God). Feelings of authorship decreased when participants were primed with God, but only among believers

How preference change induced by mere action versus inaction persists over time

Understanding how sustainable preference change can be achieved is of both scientific and practical importance. Recent work shows that merely responding or not responding to objects during go/no-go training can influence preferences for these objects right after the training, when people choose with a time limit. Here we examined whether and how such immediate preference change in fast choices can affect choices without time limit one week later. In two preregistered experiments, participants responded to go food items and withheld responses toward no-go food items during a go/no-go training. Immediately after the training, they made consumption choices for half of the items (with a time limit in Experiment 1; without time limit in Experiment 2). One week later, participants chose again (without time limit in both experiments). Half of the choices had been presented immediately after the training (repeated choices), while the other half had not (new choices). Participants preferred go over no-go items both immediately after the training and one week later. Furthermore, the effect was observed for both repeated and new choices after one week, revealing a direct effect of mere (non)responses on preferences one week later. Exploratory analyses revealed that the effect after one week is related to the memory of stimulus-response contingencies immediately after the training, and this memory is impaired by making choices. These findings show mere action versus inaction can directly induce preference change that lasts for at least one week, and memory of stimulus-response contingencies may play a crucial role in this effect

The Influence of Facial Attractiveness on Imitation

People judge, evaluate, and treat attractive people better than moderately attractive or unattractive people (Langlois et al., 2000). The fact that individuals like attractive people combined with the finding that individuals imitate the ones they like, suggests that they may be more prone to imitate attractive people. The present research extends previous work on attractiveness and imitation by examining this hypothesis. Using a novel coloring procedure, we show that attractive females are imitated more than unattractive females (Experiment 1) and that attractive males are imitated more than unattractive males (Experiment 2). Importantly, this imitation occurs without any direct or anticipated contact with the target individual and without awareness of the influence of attractiveness on imitation behavior

Perspective taking eliminates differences in co-representation of out-group members’ actions

Coordinated action relies on shared representations between interaction partners: people co-represent actions of others in order to respond appropriately. However, little is known about the social factors that influence shared representations. We investigated whether actions performed by in-group and out-group members are represented differently, and if so, what role perspective-taking plays in this process. White participants performed a joint Simon task with an animated image of a hand with either white or black skin tone. Results of study I demonstrated that actions performed by in-group members were co-represented while actions of out-group members were not. In study II, it was found that participants co-represented actions of out-group members when they had read about an out-group member and to take his perspective prior to the actual experiment. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed