John Bargh

John Bargh is an American social psychologist, whose work has focused on the automaticity of social behavior, and has shaped the understanding of how attitudes, stereotypes and emotions impact people's lives. Born in 1951, Bargh attended Yale University, where he received his B.A., and continued his studies at the University of Michigan and Harvard University, earning his Ph.D. in 1981.

Throughout his career, John Bargh has conducted an array of research projects, ranging from cognition and categorization to social perception and social cognition. Most notably, he has pioneered the concept of “automaticity” in the field of social psychology. Bargh’s early work focused on how people automatically construct categories and assign attributes to others, without being aware of it. His work pointed to greater understanding of how automatic processes guide social behavior, cognition, and interpretation of social events.

More recently, Bargh has turned his attention to the effects of emotion on social behavior. He has studied how social media can affect our daily lives, and how it influences our attitude towards certain topics. He has utilized cutting-edge analysis tools to observe how attitude, emotion and behavior interact with each other, and the impact of those interactions.

Bargh’s work has opened up a new level of understanding in the field of social psychology. His theories have been validated in multiple academic experiments, and have become a regular component of the curriculum in social psychology classes. He has been awarded multiple prestigious awards for his work, including the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Kurt Lewin Award from the Society for Applied Social Psychology, and the Outstanding Scientific Contribution Award from the Association for Psychological Science.

Bargh has authored or co-authored four books, including The Conscious Mind, published in 2014. The Conscious Mind focuses on the neuroscience of self-regulation—the ability to override our automatic behavior patterns by engaging in conscious reasoning and planning. This book helped to further the concept of automaticity, as Bargh delved into how the brain is better able to adjust or correct problem behavior when we are aware of the process. The Conscious Mind is praised for its success in making psychological science accessible to a general audience.

The impact of Bargh’s work extends far beyond the confines of academia. His research on empathy, emotion, stereotyping, and other topics has helped to inform the understanding of bias in the workplace, customer service, and more. Bargh’s work provides an invaluable source of information to the public, and he has served on boards and commissions that focus on the impact of emotion on behavior and the erosion of civil discourse.

John Bargh’s accomplishments span the fields of social psychology and neuroscience, and his work has been highly influential in both areas. Bargh’s precise and meticulous work has been a major contributor to the understanding of automaticity and its role in social behavior and cognition, and his books have helped make psychological science more accessible to the public. John Bargh is a widely honored figure in the fields of sociology and psychology, and his success speaks volumes about the impact of his work throughout the disciplines.