Bargh, Gollwitzer, & Lee-Chai (2001)

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Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Lee-Chai, A. (2001). The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1014-1027.

Bargh, Gollwitzer, and Lee-Chai (2001) found that, compared to control participants, participants primed with the achievement motive in a word-search task: 1) outperformed control participants, 2) continued working on a task after “stop” had been announced, and 3) chose to return to a word search task rather than rating cartoons. These findings suggest that motives primed unobtrusively have an effect on behavior similar to what would be expected for conscious or chronic motives. This article extended Chartrand and Bargh's (1996) finding that unobtrusively primed goals influence memory in a way similar to consciously directed goals.