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Unconscious Thought Theory

What is Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT)?

UTT, which was first presented by Ap Dijksterhuis and Loran Nordgren in 2006, posits that the unconscious mind is capable of performing tasks outside of one’s awareness, and that unconscious thought (UT) is better at solving complex tasks, where many variables are considered, than conscious thought (CT), but is outperformed by conscious thought in tasks with fewer variables. Numerous attributes of UTT are drawn from research by George Miller and Guy Claxton on cognitive- and social psychology, as well as from folk psychology; together these portray a formidable unconscious, possessing some abilities far beyond those of conscious thought. UTT is in this respect reminiscent of some classical views of the unconscious that emerged as far back as the early 20th century. Both UTT and Freudian psychoanalytic theory hold that complex operations are performed by the unconscious, but where Freud’s theory suggests that the unconscious represses harmful memories in order to protect one’s ego, UTT’s version of UT performs rational operations in order to complete unsolved cognitive or affective tasks. Helmholtz’s theory of unconscious inference also shares UTT’s view that the unconscious’ reasoning mediates our interpretation of the world, but UTT differs from unconscious inference by its clear assertion that unconscious thought is a time-consuming process; Helmholtz’s famous use of perception as an example of unconscious inference suggests that unconscious thought, for him, operates much more quickly. Probably the most striking contrast UTT has with today’s understanding of the unconscious is that between its main claim and studies on implicit perception . Researchers like Anthony Greenwald have used subliminal semantic activation tasks to evaluate unconscious thought by presenting words very quickly in order to prevent them from entering conscious thought. The unconscious’ inability to process more than one word at a time has led these researchers to conclude that unconscious thought is unsophisticated. But UTT holds that unconscious thought is very sophisticated, enjoying benefits like freedom from bias and the ability to integrate disparate pieces of information more efficiently than conscious thought.

Conscious and Unconscious Thought

Definition of CT

Dijksterhuis defines conscious thought as the thought processes one is aware of and can introspect on. For example, when someone asks you, “Why did you do that,” and you can report on the thoughts you used to give your answer, then those thoughts are conscious.

Attributes of CT

Performed on tasks or objects within one’s attention; low-capacity; relies on schemas in order to process information efficiently; bad at weighting the importance of decision factors; processes information using strict rules.

Definition of UT

Unconscious thought, for Dijksterhuis, is simply the opposite of conscious that in that it involves any thought that you cannot introspect on. This might happen when you are writing and frustrated at not having the right word, but then it simply pops into your head, and you do not know what steps you took to retrieve it; this is called incubation. Dijksterhuis’ definition is slightly unusual in that it does not mention the alternative notion of unconscious thought, thought outside of attention, although his use of a Distraction condition in his studies that prevents subjects from engaging in conscious thought suggests that he is aware of it.

Attributes of UT

Performed on tasks or objects outside of one’s attention; high capacity; does not rely on schemas or heuristics (thanks to its high capacity) and therefore not susceptible to bias; good at weighting attributes of decision objects; processes information via association; goal-dependent.

The Origins of UTT

In light of the difference in capacity between CT and UT, Dijksterhuis used a series of five experiments to test two hypotheses about the decision-making prowess of unconscious thought. The first hypothesis was that in complex decision making, being able to use UT will lead to better decisions than when one makes decisions immediately and is unable to use UT; the second was that when making complex decisions, users of only UT will outperform users of a combination of UT and CT. The standard UTT experimental paradigm is as follows:

1. Subjects are instructed to perform the complex task of “forming an impression” of four decision objects (e.g., apartments, potential roommates, or cars – things for which one must consider many variables).
2. Subjects are presented with a set of normatively positive or negative descriptive attributes for each object (For example, two positive attributes are: Apartment 2 is in the city center and, Apartment 3 is fairly large). One object is rationally the “best” choice based on its possession of a majority of positive attributes (75%), while two of the other three are “mediocre” choices and the last one a “bad” choice (possessing only 50% or 25% positive attributes, respectively).
3. Subjects are placed into one of three conditions and then told that they will have to evaluate or decide between the decision objects. A Distraction condition requires subjects to focus on a complex task like solving anagrams, preventing any conscious thought but allowing for unconscious thought. A Deliberation condition requires subjects to think about their evaluation of the objects, allowing both conscious and unconscious thought. A third Control condition requires subjects to report their answer immediately, allowing only for minimal conscious and unconscious thought.
4. Which object is chosen most by each group (i.e., the normatively good, okay, or poor object) reveals differences in decision-making effectiveness between unconscious thought (Distraction), unconscious and conscious thought together (Deliberation), and minimal thought (Control).

Using this method, Dijksterhuis found that subjects in the Distraction condition made better choices than either the Deliberation or Control conditions, and concluded that unconscious thought alone is superior to conscious thought for making complex decisions. He then published Unconscious Thought Theory with Loran Nordgren .

From UTT: Six Principles Distinguishing UT from CT

The Unconscious Thought Principle

The Unconscious Thought Principle asserts the existence and nature of two kinds of thought: conscious and unconscious. Conscious thought is defined as “object-relevant or task-relevant cognitive or affective thought processes that occur while the object or task is the focus of one’s unconscious attention,” while unconscious thought simply occurs when the object or task is outside of attention .

The Capacity Principle

According to cognitive psychologist George Miller, one cannot hold more than seven items, plus or minus two, in conscious working memory; unconscious thought does not have this restriction. UTT’s Capacity Principle assumes this seven plus-or-minus-two rule to be true .

The Bottom-Up versus Top-Down Principle

Given its low capacity, conscious thought must use a “top-down” style of processing that uses shortcuts or schemas in order to work efficiently. Because its capacity is unbound, unconscious thought instead uses a “bottom-up” style of processing that avoids schemas, integrating information efficiently and avoiding the bias that schemas might bring to conscious thought .

The Weighting Principle

Research by Timothy Wilson and Jonathan Schooler demonstrated how deliberation between choice objects and introspecting on one’s reasoning process results in poorer choice satisfaction than when one does not introspect. Combining this finding with Dijksterhuis’ that people also apparently make better decisions when distracted than when deliberating, Dijksterhuis and Nordgren posited The Weighting Principle: that unconscious thought is better than unconscious thought at appropriately weighting the relative importance of choice objects’ attributes.

The Rule Principle

According to Guy Claxton, conscious thought employs rule-based thinking, following formal rules much like those of traditional logic, whereas unconscious thought instead uses associations that are either inherent or learned through experience, as in classical conditioning. In agreement with Claxton, The Rule Principle holds that conscious thought follows stringent rules and is accordingly precise, whereas unconscious thought engages in associative processing. It is important to note that unconscious thought may conform to rules even though it does not follow them. That is, although the process used to generate an output unconsciously is different than the process used in conscious thought, unconscious thought’s output may well be identical or similar to that of conscious thought.

The Convergence Principle

When asked about the secret behind their brilliant work, Nobel Prize winners and famous artists have often cited incubation, saying that simply understanding the problem they wanted to solve and not paying mind to it somehow procured a solution. In addition to these introspective accounts, The Convergence Principle cites experiments demonstrating the merits of unconscious thought in creativity to suggest that conscious thought is focused and “convergent,” using only information directly relevant to a goal or task, while unconscious thought is more “divergent,” bringing to bear information that has less obvious relation to the goal or task at hand. In this way, long periods of unconscious thought precipitate ingenuity where conscious thought would stagnate.

Challenges to UTT

Recent challenges to UTT have argued that UTT has failed to incorporate relevant cognitive and social psychological knowledge, that the suggestion given by Dijksterhuis to use UT for complex decisions is inappropriate in certain choice environments, and offer alternative interpretations of Dijksterhuis’ and his colleagues’ findings. The earliest meta-analysis of UTT, done by Acker, found no clear advantage of UT over CT in complex decision making; a distribution of the 17 effect sizes presented by Acker is shown in Figure 4 of his article. If the effects were not so widely distributed, the overall effect size would more convincingly suggest a weak advantage of UT over CT.

Summary

Contrary to classical, romanticized views of the unconscious mind as a complex and rational system, researchers of subliminal semantic activation provided sobering evidence that the unconscious is in fact not so sophisticated. This view dominated until 2004, when proponents of UTT again reassigned the analytical powers of conscious thought to unconscious thought, albeit only in the context of complex decision-making. Recent research suggests that branding UT as a powerful analytical tool is not warranted and that the apparent deficiencies of conscious thinking reported by UTT theorists are actually just products of over-thinking – that deliberation is useful for complex decisions, like buying a new car, but can actually reduce choice satisfaction if applied to simple decisions or cases in which one has already decided what to do.

It is known that unconscious thought can interpret single words or images, and that deliberating over a simple problem for too long can be disadvantageous. It remains unclear under what circumstances, if any, it is best to delegate decision problems to one’s unconscious by diverting attention from them (see Payne and Waroquier), and to what extent logical, rule-based thought processes can occur outside of awareness. More fundamentally, it is still unknown what exactly happens neurologically when unconscious thought occurs, a more thorough understanding of which may inform those trying to prescribe unconscious or conscious thought. (Antonio Damasio’s recent book on the neurology of reason, Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, while not a book on consciousness, explains the evolved interaction between emotion – an unconscious process, distinct from the conscious experience of feeling – and conscious reasoning that takes place in normal brains.)

Related Links

Ap Dijksterhuis' Lab website

Dijksterhuis’ Collaborators’ Research:

Loran Nordgren

Pamela Smith

Chenbo Zhong