Think Different: The Merits of Unconscious Thought in Preference Development and Decision Making.
Abstract
The role of unconscious and conscious thought in decision making was investigated in 5 experiments. Because of the low processing capacity of consciousness, conscious thought was hypothesized to be maladaptive when making complex decisions. Conversely, unconscious thought was expected to be highly effective. In Experiments 1-3, participants were presented with a complex decision problem in which they had to choose between various alternatives, each with multiple attributes. Some participants had to make a decision immediately after being presented with the options. In the conscious thought condition, participants could think about the decision for a few minutes. In the unconscious thought condition, participants were distracted for a few minutes and then indicated their decision. Throughout the experiments, unconscious thinkers made the best decisions. Additional evidence obtained in Experiments 4 and 5 suggests that unconscious thought leads to clearer, more polarized, and more integrated representations in memory.
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In the psychology literature, there are tasks where verbal thinking hurts human performance.
“To explore our approach, we first draw on the psychology literature for a collection of tasks where verbal thinking hurts human performance (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990 ;Dijksterhuis, 2004;Van den Bos & Poletiek, 2008, inter alia).”
From Mind Your Step (by Step): Chain-of-Thought can Reduce Performance on Tasks where Thinking Makes Humans Worse (2024) · cites this paper as Dijksterhuis, 2004
Humans were forced to rely on their aggregate impressions of each apartment due to the large amount of information.
“Humans were forced to rely on their aggregate impressions of each apartment due to the large amount of information.”
From Mind Your Step (by Step): Chain-of-Thought can Reduce Performance on Tasks where Thinking Makes Humans Worse (2024) · cites this paper as Dijksterhuis (2004)
Authors found that the distractor task actually improved performance over deliberating.
“Authors found that the distractor task actually improved performance over deliberating.”
From Mind Your Step (by Step): Chain-of-Thought can Reduce Performance on Tasks where Thinking Makes Humans Worse (2024) · cites this paper as Dijksterhuis (2004)
Humans sometimes make poor choices when they deliberate over multi-dimensional aggregation problems with numerous features.
“Finally, humans sometimes make poor choices when they deliberate over multi-dimensional aggregation problems with numerous features (Dijksterhuis, 2004)”
From Mind Your Step (by Step): Chain-of-Thought can Reduce Performance on Tasks where Thinking Makes Humans Worse (2024) · cites this paper as Dijksterhuis, 2004
Dijksterhuis (2004) found that humans made poor choices when deliberating over apartment options if provided with a large amount of information about various apartment features in a short amount of time.
“Dijksterhuis (2004) found that humans made poor choices when deliberating over apartment options if provided with a large amount of information about various apartment features in a short amount of time.”
From Mind Your Step (by Step): Chain-of-Thought can Reduce Performance on Tasks where Thinking Makes Humans Worse (2024) · cites this paper as Dijksterhuis (2004)
The original human study required a clear best apartment for the average tenant while not making the task too simple.
“This was to ensure that there is a clear best apartment for the average tenant while not making the task too simple, which were also requirements in the original human study (Dijksterhuis, 2004).”
From Mind Your Step (by Step): Chain-of-Thought can Reduce Performance on Tasks where Thinking Makes Humans Worse (2024) · cites this paper as Dijksterhuis, 2004
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References 49 · Cited by 836
- Authors
- Dijksterhuis, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Dijksterhuis, Ap
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2004
- Volume
- 87
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 586-598
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W2156047893
- Cited by
- 836
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 49 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 34 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 52 · 2014: 53 · 2013: 43 · 2012: 85
- FWCI
- 9.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Keywords
- unconscious thought, conscious thought, decision-making, preference formation, complex decision problems, memory representation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Analysis of Variance, Attitude, Choice Behavior, Consciousness, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Male, Mental Recall, Students, Thinking, Time Factors, Unconscious, Psychology
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