title: Preparing and motivating behavior outside of awareness.
abstract: The mere activation of the idea of a behavioral act moves the human body without the person consciously deciding to take action. In an experiment, we showed that people subliminally primed with the concept of exertion were faster to squeeze a hand grip forcefully but expended more effort when the subliminal primes were directly accompanied by consciously visible positive stimuli. These findings demonstrate the human capacity to rely on mental processes in preparing and motivating behavior outside of awareness.
authors: Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584 CS Utrecht, Netherlands. h.aarts@uu.nl
authors: Henk
authors: H
authors: Aarts
authors: Ruud
authors: R
authors: Custers
authors: Hans
authors: H
authors: Marien
mesh_terms: D001364:Awareness; D018737:Hand Strength; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes; D009042:Motivation; D005082:Physical Exertion; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation