Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do

‘John Bargh's Before You Know It moves our understanding of the mysteries of human behaviour one giant step forward. A brilliant and convincing book.’ – Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and David and Goliath

The world’s leading expert on the unconscious mind reveals the hidden mental processes that secretly govern every aspect of our behaviour.

For more than three decades, Dr John Bargh has been conducting revolutionary research into the unconscious mind – not Freud’s dark, malevolent unconscious but the new unconscious, a helpful and powerful part of the mind that we can access and understand through experimental science. Now, Dr Bargh presents an engaging and enlightening tour of the influential psychological forces that are at work as we go about our daily lives – checking a dating app, holding a cup of hot coffee, or getting a flu shot.

Dr Bargh takes you into his labs at New York University and Yale where his ingenious experiments have shown how the unconscious guides our behaviour, goals and motivations in areas like race relations, parenting, business, consumer behaviour and addiction. He reveals the pervasive influence of the unconscious mind in who we choose to date or vote for, what we buy, where we live, how we perform on tests and in job interviews, and much more. Before You Know It is full of surprising and entertaining revelations as well as tricks to help you remember to-do items, shop smarter and sleep better.

Before You Know It will profoundly change the way you understand yourself by introducing you to a fascinating world only recently discovered, the world that exists below the surface of your awareness and yet is the key to unlocking new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.