Review of
Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do
by John Bargh
Heinemann, 2017
John Bargh stands out in the field of social psychology, serving as an engaging and skilled navigator through research on the influence of our motivations, goals, habits, history, and surroundings on our daily actions. His passion for the subject, coupled with a knack for executing experiments with a flair that surpasses typical psychological studies, is evident throughout this book, alongside glimpses of his affection for his family, road trips, and Led Zeppelin. In “Before You Know It”, Bargh guides us through a series of eye-opening demonstrations illustrating how minor variations can lead to significant impacts on our conduct, potentially without our complete awareness of their significance. Examples include his renowned experiment where students engaged in a word unscrambling task featuring primes related to the “elderly” concept were observed to walk slower down the corridor after the experiment, or the research showing that holding a warm drink led individuals to rate a stranger more favorably. In addition to showcasing social psychology experiments through the lens of an unrivaled insider’s perspective, Bargh provides a portrayal of human behavior that integrates our social existence with insights from cognition, neuroscience, and evolution. He contends that social psychology is not an isolated field but a component of a wider, multidisciplinary understanding of the mind, referencing Skinner, Freud, and Darwin along with notable historical and contemporary psychologists.
Like much of psychology, numerous studies cited in this book have come under fresh examination amidst the ‘replication crisis’. A central theme of the book, referred to as ‘social priming’, has faced significant criticism for being built on unstable, selectively reported research. This isn’t the appropriate venue to assess the reliability of Bargh’s research techniques, yet it is notable that he doesn’t address these criticisms at all.
Bargh’s broad application of the term ‘unconscious’ makes the term, in my view, lose its significance. He utilizes it for any behavior that isn’t accompanied by a complete disclosure of all causes. The inherent difficulties in obtaining reliable self-reports concerning internal states, combined with the privileged knowledge of experimenters (who understand the experimental conditions) compared to participants (who are only aware of one condition), render it invalid to deduce from a failure to report that a participant is completely unaware of a factor influencing their behavior. Bargh might choose to use ‘unconscious’ to imply ‘not frequently discussed’, but it misleads the reader, who could assume the term holds deeper conceptual significance.
Bargh’s book does not fulfill the expectations set by any of its elements. The real-life anecdotes of individuals whose actions have been ‘unconsciously’ swayed that he incorporates to enrich his chapters are engagingly narrated, yet the analysis lacks depth and could have been more intricately tied to the experimental findings. The experiments detailed are intriguing; however – and perhaps this is my academic bias – I would have appreciated a more extensive discussion of alternative interpretations and more specifics regarding the exact outcomes. The theoretical framework he promotes is satisfactorily integrative, as noted earlier, but the experiments are merely shown as supporting certain theoretical notions, often leaving it ambiguous what theories they refute or practical implications they advocate. Lastly, while the author’s personal characteristics and narrative appear frequently in the book, the treatment is frustratingly superficial. Given his stature as a prominent psychologist and influential researcher, insights into how Bargh lives and works could be captivating, but these insights remain tantalizingly sparse – Bargh’s allure is evident, yet, akin to the research, there aren’t sufficient details to provide full satisfaction.