Cue Usage in Conscious and Unconscious Thought
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Date
2011-06
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
According to the capacity principle of Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT), unconscious thought should outperform conscious thought on complex decision making tasks due to its larger capacity for information (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006). In this study, participants were asked to complete a prediction task using up to two cues after a period of unconscious thought or deliberation. Some subjects were presented with an intuitive prediction task; others were presented with a non-intuitive one. Contrary to UTT, it was found that unconscious thinkers used fewer cues to make decisions, and they performed worse than conscious thinkers on both intuitive and non-intuitive prediction tasks.
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Keywords
unconscious thought, judgment, decision making, consciousness, prediction, information usage