JOHN A. BARGH is a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University and director of the ACME (Automaticity in Cognition, Motivation and Evaluation) Lab. In 2007 he received the Donald T. Campbell Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology for distinguished contributions to social psychology, and later that year received the Scientific Impact Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology.
His lines of research all focus on unconscious mechanisms that underlie social perception, evaluation and preferences, and motivation and goal pursuit in realistic and complex social environments. That each of these basic psychological phenomena occur without the person's intention and awareness, yet have such strong effects on the person's decisions and behavior, has considerable implications for philosophical matters such as free will, and the nature and purpose of consciousness itself.