Does unconscious thought outperform conscious thought on complex decisions? A further examination

Journal Title: Judgment and Decision Making - Year 2009, Vol 4, Issue 3

Abstract

Two experiments examined the benefits of unconscious thought on complex decisions (Dijksterhuis, 2004). Experiment 1 attempted to replicate and extend past research by examining the effect of providing reasons prior to rating the options. Results indicated no significant differences between the conditions. Experiment 2 attempted to replicate the findings of Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, and van Baaren (2006) and determine if a memory aid could overcome the limitations of conscious thought on complex tasks. Results revealed that a memory aid improved decisions compared to the conscious thought condition. Participants in the unconscious thought condition did not perform significantly better than did participants in the conscious thought condition.

Authors and Affiliations

Todd J. Thorsteinson and Scott Withrow

Keywords

Related Articles

Cross-national in-group favoritism in prosocial behavior: Evidence from Latin and North America

As individuals from different nations increasingly interact with each other, research on national in-group favoritism becomes particularly vital. In a cross-national, large-scale study (N = 915) including representative...

Validation of the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale in Chinese college students

Using college student samples, two studies were conducted to validate the Chinese version of the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) Scale. The results replicated important findings reported by Weber et al. (2002) in t...

Communicating clinical trial outcomes: Effects of presentation method on physicians’ evaluations of new treatments

Physicians expect a treatment to be more effective when its clinical outcomes are described as relative rather than as absolute risk reductions. We examined whether effects of presentation method (relative vs. absolute r...

Order effects in the results of song contests: Evidence from the Eurovision and the New Wave

The results of song contests offer a unique opportunity to analyze possible distortions arising from various biases in performance evaluations using observational data. In this study we investigate the influence of conte...

Valuing bets and hedges

Two studies replicate the anomaly identified by Frederick, Meyer and Levis (2015) and Frederick, Levis, Malliaris and Meyer (2018). People show typical risk averse behavior by valuing risk below the focal lottery’s expec...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP677681
  • DOI -
  • Views 143
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Todd J. Thorsteinson and Scott Withrow (2009). Does unconscious thought outperform conscious thought on complex decisions? A further examination. Judgment and Decision Making, 4(3), -. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-677681