Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 1982 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 1982, Vol. 43, No. 3, 437-449 0022-3514/82/4303-0437$00,75 Automatic Information Processing and Social Perception: The Influence of Trait Information Presented Outside of Conscious Awareness on Impression Formation John A. Bargh Paula Pietromonaco New York University University of Michigan The accessibility of a category in memory has been shown to influence the se- lection and interpretation of social information. The present experiment exam- ined the possibility that information relevant to a trait category (hostility) pre- sented outside of conscious awareness can temporarily increase that category's accessibility. Subjects initially performed a vigilance task in which they were exposed unknowingly to single words. Either 0%, 20%, or 80% of these words were semantically related to hostility. In an ostensibly unrelated second task, subjects read a behavioral description of a stimulus person that was ambiguous regarding hostility, and then rated the stimulus person on several trait dimensions. The amount of processing subjects gave to the hostile information and the neg- ativity of their ratings of the stimulus person both were reliably and positively related to the proportion of hostile words to which they were exposed. Several control conditions confirmed that the words were not consciously perceived. It was concluded that social stimuli of which people are not consciously aware can influence conscious judgments. The social perceiver is continuously con- The relative accessibilities of these cate- fronted with a formidable array of environ- gories, therefore, partly determine the selec- mental information to interpret. Bruner tion and interpretation of social information (1957, 1958) was one of the first to recognize (Bruner, 1957; Higgins & King, 1981; Wyer that this information is manageable only by & Srull, 1981). The more accessible a cat- selectively attending to certain features of egory, the more likely it is to be used to the stimulus field and by further reducing process relevant information. Category ac- this limited range of information by assign- cessibilities are critical to the outcome of ing it to cognitive categories—abstract rep- social perception because a considerable per- resentations of conceptually related infor- centage of social information is at least mation. In this increasingly popular view somewhat ambiguous (Bruner, 1958), and (e.g., Cantor, 1981; Mischel, 1979; Neisser, an ambiguous stimulus will tend to be "cap- 1976; Norman & Bobrow, 1976), perception tured" by the most accessible category for consists of the interaction between the cog- which it is relevant. nitive structure of the perceiver and the en- Categories can become more accessible vironmental context. through greater recency or frequency of ac- tivation. A category's acute or temporary This article is based on part of a doctoral dissertation accessibility is directly related to its recency in social psychology at the University of Michigan by of activation: The more recently a category John A. Bargh. He thanks Hazel Markus, Stephen Ka- has been used, the greater its acute acces- plan, William Kunst-Wilson, and Robert Zajonc for sibility (Hayes-Roth, 1977; Higgins & King, their constant support while serving as his committee. 1981; Srull & Wyer, 1979,1980). In a study We are grateful to them and to Yaacov Schul, Richard Sorrentino, and Thomas Srull for their detailed com- by Higgins, Rholes, and Jones (1977), sub- ments on an earlier version of this article. We also thank jects first performed a color-naming task in Thomas Srull for supplying the stimulus materials used which they were presented with a word to in the experiment. hold in memory until the color had been Requests for reprints should be sent to John A. Bargh, Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 named. These memory words included four Washington Place, Seventh Floor, New York, New personality trait terms, either positive or York 10003. negative and either relevant or irrelevant to 437 438 JOHN A. BARGH AND PAULA PIETROMONACO the stimulus material of the next task. In the trated the influence of chronically accessible second task, allegedly unrelated to the first, categories. Subjects read a behavioral de- all subjects read the same behavioral de- scription of a stimulus person. After an in- scription of a stimulus person. Subjects ex- tervening task, they wrote down the behav- posed to the relevant trait terms evaluated ioral description as accurately as they could, the stimulus person in line with the deno- followed by their impression of the stimulus tative character of those traits (i.e., either person. The contents of the story reproduc- positively or negatively), whereas the posi- tions and impressions varied with the sub- tive and negative irrelevant trait terms had jects' individual category accessibilities, no effect on subjects' evaluations. Higgins which had been assessed previously via a et al. (1977) concluded that the earlier ex- card-sorting task. More accessible trait in- posure to the trait terms had activated trait formation was included in both the repro- categories that influenced subsequent pro- ductions and impressions than was inacces- cessing of trait-relevant but not trait-irrel- sible trait information. evant information. Higgins and King (1981) have argued that Srull and Wyer (1979, 1980) replicated category priming effects can be passive, that and extended this finding. In an ostensibly is, not require a conscious expectancy or set unrelated first task, subjects were exposed on the part of subjects. They held that sub- to behavioral exemplars of a trait. In a sec- jects in the Higgins et al. (1977) study were ond task, they read a behavior description not aware of the connection between the two relevant to that trait. Evaluations of the allegedly unrelated experiments they partic- stimulus person on the relevant trait (e.g., ipated in, and that this, coupled with the "hostile"), and also on evaluatively similar subjects' relatively low level of recall for the traits (e.g., "conceited" and "narrow- adjectives used in the first task, demon- minded"), were influenced by the earlier ex- strated a lack of conscious awareness of the posure to the trait-relevant information. Ap- priming information during performance of parently, although an activated trait cate- the second task. The subjects had certainly gory only influences the processing of been momentarily aware of the priming ad- category-relevant information (Higgins et jectives during the color-naming task, how- al., 1977), the effect of this processing can ever, and were able to recall over half of be to influence judgments along other trait these adjectives after evaluating the stimulus dimensions as well (Srull & Wyer, 1979). person, so that to an extent they still were It should also be noted that presenting the conscious of the prior presence of the prim- priming information after the behavioral ing adjectives at the time they read the de- description has no effect on trait ratings scription of the stimulus person. (Srull & Wyer, 1980), underscoring the im- A more stringent and conclusive test of portance of categpry accessibility during in- the existence of passive, automatic priming formation acquisition in determining how effects would require the priming informa- that information will be interpreted. tion to be presented outside of subjects' con- A given category also can differ across scious awareness. In an investigation of the individuals in its long-term, or chronic, ac- influence of social constructs on selective cessibility. In general, the more frequently attention, Bargh (1982) found that people a category is activated the more accessible for whom the trait category of independence it becomes, requiring decreasing amounts of was chronically accessible (i.e., a trait very stimulus energy to detect congruent infor- mation (Bruner, 1957; Higgins & King, 1981; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977).' Individ- 1 This point is a source of difference between the cat- uals will vary in the frequency with which egory accessibility models of Higgins and King (1981) different categories become active, due to and Wyer and Srull (1981). In the Wyer and Srull variance in their past experiences, and their "storage bin" model, a category not frequently used can still have long-term effects as long as it was the most repertoires of chronically accessible cate- recently used (i.e., is on the top of the bin). In the Hig- gories will vary accordingly. A recent study gins and King model, as here, frequent activation is a by Higgins, King, and Mavin (1982) illus- necessary condition for chronic accessibility. AUTOMATICITY AND IMPRESSION FORMATION 439 frequently used in reference to the self) included to ensure that subjects had not been showed evidence of processing indepen- conscious of the hostile information. dence-related information of which they were not consciously aware. This suggests Experiment 1 that chronically accessible categories are capable of becoming active outside of con- Method sciousness. Therefore, presentation of cate- Overview gory-consistent stimuli below the threshold Subjects were randomly assigned to either the rate, of conscious recognition should result in the test, or guess condition. Those assigned to the rate con- activation of chronically accessible catego- dition were exposed to either 0%, 20%, or 80% hostile ries, with this automatic activation resulting