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Study says unconscious consideration yields most satisfying decisions.
The best way to make a tough decision is to put your feet up and think about something else. So says an investigation of people shopping for cars, clothes and furniture.
Read the full story here.
Posted by Helen Pearson on February 16, 2006 06:49 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Those of us who have worked in the recovery field have long used the "gut feeling" to assist our clients in figuring out solutions to personal problems. I use it almost daily in my own life.
However, we/I use it differently, operating on the assumption that if there is that uneasy gut feeling about something, it needs a lot more consideration. In dealing with people, in particular, both as a counselor and previously as a police officer, I've found it to be accurate far more often than not.
Essentially, if something doesn't "feel" right, there's an excellent chance it isn't. That little nagging feeling is an extremely effective guide.
Posted by: Bill Webb | February 16, 2006 07:39 PM
This is old hat, I am afraid. The accuracy of unconscious processing is well known since ancient times. Three examples: the famous dreams of matematician Henri Poincaré and chemist Kekulé, respectively,which solved complex scientific problems, and the ubiquitous phenomena of transference and counter-transference in psychoanalysis.
Posted by: Magnus Kihlbom | February 17, 2006 10:30 AM
I feel that an equally valid explanation for feeling happy with 'gut feeling' decisions could be that having made a quick choice you feel that you must justify your choice and therefore your evaluation of the product is skewed such that you rate your satisfaction with it more highly - a form of cognitive bias. Is this not a more simple explanation than an unconscious engine churning through data?
Posted by: Patrick Middleton | February 17, 2006 10:51 AM
I am inclined to agree with Patrick. The research described here does not rule out the influence of cognitive dissonance on the expression of satisfaction. If someone has slept on a decision, after they evaluated some of the options objectively, then perhaps they have more commitment to thinking that they made the right choice than someone who didn't "sleep on it."
Posted by: Gwen Murdock | February 17, 2006 04:10 PM
Although there may be some cognitive dissonance, there is good evidence of the existence of unconscious data processing. Just think of how we can acquire language, or even process it in conversations. Most of the day-to-day decisions we make are made in an intuitive manner, for instance, driving. The greater part of the analysis involved in driving a car come from this unconscious churning of information. After all, our senses are exposed to much more data than we can possibly consciously register.
Recent studies (cf. Dr. Laurent Mottron’s paper presented last weekend at the American Association for the Advancement of Science) seem to indicate that the intelligence shown in autism is closer to that kind of processing than our conscious categorizing methods.
Posted by: Marc Andre Belanger | February 21, 2006 12:57 PM
Well, quite convincing but still not very appealing.Decisions made by the unconcious mind are quite influenzed by the thougths of a concious mind. Like,if people were not given a list of pros and cons and then allowed to make a choice, this would better reveal the real story instead of people made aware of them.It would rather be a concious decision or a bias than a gut feeling per se.
Posted by: Payal Bhatia | February 21, 2006 01:14 PM
I use my gut to decide what to eat and how much to eat. I hope that construction of new buildings, airplanes, cars, bridges,etc. are are not governed by gut feelings. I think this is all a crock.
LLB
Posted by: LaMar L. Briner | February 21, 2006 07:43 PM
Comment:
I wonder if this is something to do with the need to minimize regret. There have been a few models of decision making arguing that humans try to decide in a way that will minimize later regret.
The complex decision that requires much calculation may be a recipe for later regret because the decision maker can't be certain they have made the best decision. But the those who went with their gut were perhaps less aware of the complexity and were therefore less regretful.
There is research showing that ppeople are mostly likely to read adverts for a product after they have bought it - a finding that again suggests the need to mimize later regret.
Lance
Posted by: Lance Lachenicht | February 22, 2006 12:37 PM
The Search for a Consciousness Theory
Dijksterhuis et al. conclude that it should benefit the individual to think consciously about simple matters and to delegate thinking about more complex matters to the unconscious. According to them there is no a priori reason to assume that the deliberation-without-attention effect does not generalize to other types of choices.
Is this, however, the right conclusion? The results of previous studies on unconscious information processing of sensory stimuli (1) suggest that this may be an evolutionary mechanism (2) that humans share with other species. Why should humans use consciousness for simple matters then? Another problem with the conclusion is that it does not match with current neuroscience findings. Previous ERP-studies have shown that both consciously- and unconsciously presented stimuli are first processed via an automatically engaged neural mechanism, which occurs outside conscious awareness (3). This mechanism operates in conjunction with a slower and more comprehensive process that allows a detailed evaluation of e.g. a potentially harmful stimulus (3). Also, how does the conclusion drawn by Dijksterhuis et al. match with the laws of physics (4)? In other words; is there conscious information processing before unconscious information processing?
To conclude, the challenge for future research is to understand the mechanisms behind unconscious information processing from different scientific perspectives (4). The multidisciplinary search for a complete theory of consciousness is therefore needed; whether or not such a theory exists (5). Until then, like in the current study, only pieces of the puzzle can be understood.
References
1. J. A. Bargh, T. L. Chartrand, Am. Psychol. 54, 462 (1999).
2. M. Chen, J. A. Bargh, Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 25, 215 (1999).
3. B. J. Liddell, L. M. Williams, J. Rathjen, H. Shevrin, E. Gordon, J. Cog. Neurosci. 16, 479 (2004).
4. S. Hameroff, in The Emerging Physics of Consciousness, J. Tuszynski, Ed. (Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 2006).
5. R. Penrose, Nature 433, 259 (2005).
Posted by: Maurits van den Noort | April 24, 2006 02:39 PM