Automatism

In psychology, automaticity describes the property of many psychological processes without intention, without conscious control , attention or consciousness . This is justified in particular from an economic point of view, insofar as consciousness is a very limited resource , which by far cannot capture everything that a person has to perceive, process and control at any given moment in order to deal effectively with their environment. Automaticity itself cannot be measured and is therefore considered a concept ( construct ). It is defined differently by different authors. In the course of research, more and more mental processes were recognized as automatic and it is assumed for almost all mental phenomena.

classification

Automaticity can be divided into a preconscious and goal-dependent form. In the first case, processes take place without a conscious cause after they have been triggered by an external or internal stimulus (e.g. recognizing someone). Automatic processes that run without conscious control, but only after willful initiation (e.g. catching a ball) are goal-dependent.

criteria

John A. Bargh named the following four criteria as typical characteristics for automatic processes

• unintentional,
• not controllable
• unaware
• efficient (i.e. without using limited mental resources)

by other authors are also mentioned

• inevitable / inevitable
• fast

Examples

Everyday examples of automatic psychological processes include walking, cycling or driving a car, recognizing faces, reading and many others. Currently (as of 2012) research is being carried out on automatism and a. in the context of

• Opinion formation,
• Emotion regulation ,
• Prejudices ,
• Buying behavior,
• Health behavior,
• Facial expression recognition ,
• Behavioral contagion,
• social mimicry,
• social evaluation,
• moral judgment,
• Decision making ,
• conscious learning of skills,
• Attention,
• Movement control and
• (romantic) relationship / partnership.

See also

• Automatic stereotype
• attention
• Executive functions
• cognition

Individual evidence

1. ^ Agnes Moors, Jan De Houwer: Automaticity: A Theoretical and Conceptual Analysis. In: Psychological Bulletin , 132 (2): 297-326.
2. ^ John A. Bargh, Kay L. Schwader et al .: Automaticity in social-cognitive processes. In: Trends in Cognitive Sciences , December 2012, Vol. 16, No. 12 doi : 10.1016 / j.tics.2012.10.002
3. ^ John A Bargh: The Four Horsemen of Automaticity: Awareness, Intention, Efficiency, and Control in Social Cognition ( PDF file; 495 kB ( Memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive )).
4. ^ John A. Bargh, Kay L. Schwader et al .: Automaticity in social-cognitive processes. In: Trends in Cognitive Sciences , December 2012, Vol. 16, No. 12 doi : 10.1016 / j.tics.2012.10.002