ABSTRACT
Research on automaticity has often been met with resistance (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Dijksterhuis, Aarts, & Smith, 200,5). In hindsight, we can conclude we have witnessed a scientific tug-of-war. All human behavior was neatly divided between two camps: one favoring automaticity, the other believing in an essential, decisive role of consciousness. An interesting intellectual debate ensued during which both camps strived for a share as big as realistically possible. That is, the discussion during these years centered around the qucstion of what behavior is automatic and what behavior requires some sort of conscious decision. However, every few years people firmly helieving in a decisive rolc of consciousness had to give in a few feet. Automaticity researchers would throw up yet another new priming experiment demonstrating some aspect of our fimctioning to be automatic, and others could do not much more than dislike it and give in ("Oh no! Goals too'?"). After all these years, most people would agree that, in principle at least, almost anything can be done automatically. We can brush the sand off our clothes and move on.
