Is it better to think unconsciously or to trust your first impression? A reassessment of Unconscious Thought Theory (original) (raw)
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On Unconscious and Conscious Thought and the Accuracy of Implicit and Explicit Judgments
Social Cognition, 2011
research suggesting merits of deliberation under distraction mainly have assessed explicit judgments. however, unconscious thought theory argues that also under conditions of conscious thinking (some) unconscious thinking takes place albeit at implicit cognitive levels. Therefore, we performed two studies in which we assessed the effects of unconscious and conscious thinking on explicit and implicit judgments. in both experiments, participants read a complex situation description. Next, they made judgments immediately, could consciously think about their judgments for a couple of minutes, or were distracted for a couple of minutes and then made their judgments. Finally, we assessed implicit judgment accuracy using an implicit association test, and explicit judgment accuracy using rating scales. replicating earlier research, results suggest that unconscious thinking leads to the best explicit assessments. however, as expected, both unconscious thinking and conscious thinking lead to better implicit assessments than participants in immediate judgment conditions. importantly, only for unconscious thinking these implicit assessments were in line with explicit assessments. implications are discussed. Earlier research (Dijksterhuis, 2004; Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, & Van Baaren, 2006) has suggested that deliberation without attention can lead to more accurate complex judgments than conscious deliberation or immediate judgment, and showed no clear pattern of differences between the latter two. However, little is known about the processes of unconscious thought. We argue that both conscious
Review of General …, 2008
Based on Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT) and a series of experimental and correlational studies, Dijksterhuis and his colleagues conclude that when making complex choices/decisions, conscious thought-deliberation while attention is directed at the problem-leads to poorer choices/decisions than "unconscious thought"deliberation in the absence of conscious attention directed at the problem. UTT comprises six principles said to apply to decision making, impression formation, attitude formation and change, problem solving, and creativity. Because the implications of UTT for psychological research and theory are considerable, the authors critically examined these six principles (and the studies used to support them) in light of the extant scholarship on unconscious processes, memory, attention, and social cognition. Our examination reveals that UTT is a theory of the unconscious that fails to take into account important work in cognitive psychology, particularly in the judgment and decision making area. Moreover, established literatures in social psychology that contradict fundamental tenets of UTT and its empirical basis are ignored. The authors conclude that theoretical and experimental deficiencies undermine the claims of the superiority of unconscious thinking as portrayed by UTT.
The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect Evidence for an Artifactual Interpretation
2009
Proponents of unconscious-thought theory assert that letting the unconscious ''mull it over'' can enhance decisions. In a series of recent studies, researchers demonstrated that participants whose attention was focused on solving a complex problem (i.e., those using conscious thought) made poorer choices, decisions, and judgments than participants whose attention was distracted from the problem (i.e., those purportedly using unconscious thought). We argue that this finding, rather than establishing the existence of a deliberation-withoutattention effect, is explained more compellingly in terms of the well-established distinction between on-line and memory-based judgments. In Experiment 1, we reversed the recent finding by simply changing participants' on-line processing goal from impression formation to memorization. Experiment 2 provided a replication and further established that some cognitive effort appears necessary to produce both the original pattern of results and its reversal, suggesting that such judgments are ultimately a product of conscious, rather than unconscious, thinking.
Judgment and decision making
According to the deliberation without attention (DWA) hypothesis, people facing a difficult choice will make a better decision after a period of distraction than after an equally long period of conscious deliberation, an effect referred to as the unconscious thought advantage (UTA). The status of the DWA hypothesis is controversial, as many studies have tried but failed to replicate the UTA. Here, we report a series of experiments that sought to identify the conditions under which the UTA can be replicated. Our starting point was a recent meta-analysis that identified the conditions under which the UTA was strongest in previous studies. Using a within-subjects design and a task that met each of these conditions, we failed to replicate the UTA. Based on closer inspection of previous methods and findings, we then examined some additional factors that could be important for replicating the UTA, including mental fatigue and choice complexity. This was to no avail, as the results reveale...
Information presentation format moderates the unconscious-thought effect: The role of recollection
Memory, 2015
The unconscious-thought effect occurs when distraction improves complex decision making. In two experiments using the unconscious-thought paradigm, we investigated the effect of presentation format of decision information (i) on memory for decision-relevant information and (ii) on the quality of decisions made after distraction, conscious deliberation or immediately. We used the process-dissociation procedure to measure recollection and familiarity. The two studies showed that presenting information blocked per criterion led participants to recollect more decision-relevant details compared to a presentation by option.
Unconscious influences of, not just on, decision-making
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2014
To what extent do we know our own minds when making decisions? Variants of this question have preoccupied researchers in a wide range of domains, from mainstream experimental psychology (cognition, perception, social behavior) to cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics. A pervasive view places a heavy explanatory burden on an intelligent cognitive unconscious, with many theories assigning causally effective roles to unconscious influences. This article presents a novel framework for evaluating these claims and reviews evidence from three major bodies of research in which unconscious factors have been studied: multiple-cue judgment, deliberation without attention, and decisions under uncertainty. Studies of priming (subliminal and primes-to-behavior) and the role of awareness in movement and perception (e.g., timing of willed actions, blindsight) are also given brief consideration. The review highlights that inadequate procedures for assessing awareness, failures to consider artifactual explanations of "landmark" results, and a tendency to uncritically accept conclusions that fit with our intuitions have all contributed to unconscious influences being ascribed inflated and erroneous explanatory power in theories of decision making. The review concludes by recommending that future research should focus on tasks in which participants' attention is diverted away from the experimenter's hypothesis, rather than the highly reflective tasks that are currently often employed.
On Leaping to Conclusions When Feeling Tired: Mental Fatigue Effects on Impressional Primacy
An experiment examined the impact of mental fatigue on impression formation. Subjects experiencing fatigue as a result of participation in a lengthy final examination at a university manifested greater magnitude of primacy effects in impressions than did nonfatigued subjects. Those differences disappeared when subjects were held accountable for their impressions. The findings are discussed in reference to the possibility that fatigue renders information processing subjectively costly inducing the need for cognitive closure (Kruglanski, in press) promoting a ''freezing'' on impressions implied by early information about a social target. Similarly, need for closure is assumed to be lowered by accountability concerns. This analysis is discussed in light of the alternative possibility that the effects of fatigue on impressions stem from a depletion of cognitive capacity.