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Controlled processes (Week 3) (Consciousness (The Cognitive Monster …
Controlled processes
(Week 3)
Features
Together with automatic processes, controlled processes influence social judgements
They are defined by features that are the opposite to those that characterise automatic processes:
Intentional: individual's intent determines how they operate
Controllable: once begun, they can be interrupted
Capacity use: they resort to limited attentional resources (effortful)
Conscious: they operate within one's awareness
Goal-Driven Automatic Processes
They are in the middle of the continuum that goes form the relatively automatic to the relatively controlled processes
They are partially automatic:
-- processes outside one's awareness
-- no monitoring
-- unintentional outcomes
They are partially controlled:
-- thy depend on one's goal
-- some goals are preconscious though
-- one's conscious intent can trigger automaticity
Example
:
The goal of getting to know an interesting person can be supported by a spontaneous process of inferring trait inferences from faces (e.g. that person in the corner looks boring)
conscious goal --> automatic process
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explicit goal - under control
other automatic processes might contribute to goal achievement
spontaneous (don't question own inferences that are unconscious)
Goal-Inconsistent Automaticity
Sometimes our goals launch automatic processes that are not consistent with our conscious will
unwanted thoughts --> desire for avoidance
clinically-relevant example: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - supression of avoidance in response to threat-related thoughts is maladaptive
.
when trying to suppress unwanted / intrusive thoughts - rebound effect - counterproductive
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can be overcome by distraction, mindfullness, or changing goal
Daniel M. Wegner
Main reseach topics
Transactive Memory System (1987): new memories can emerge especially in groups with established relationships --> divistion of the memory load
Ironic process theory (1994): attempts to suppress thoughts make them come to surface (the white bear effect)
Wegner et al. (1987)
N = 34
2 conditions:
-- 1) Initial suppression: suppress a thought (first phase) - express a thought (second phase)
-- 2) Initial expression: express a thought (fist phase) - suppress a thought (second phase)
.
Procedure:
-- Describe what you are thinking
-- Suppression period-5': Thy not to think about a white bear, but if you think of it ring the bell
-- Expression period-5': Try to think of a white bear
Results:
-- PP. thought of a white bear more than once per minute even when instructed not to think of it --> paradoxical or
ironic effect
-- rebound effect: after the initial suppression, an increase in the frequency of thoughts about the white bear was observed in the expression period. PP. thought of the white bear even more frequently than when they were asked to do so from the start
supporession not a self-regulatory mechanism
e.g. rebound effect in dieting
Rumination
-When we fail to repress an intrusive thought, we can start brooding over it
Rumination: repetitive, unwanted thinking about something for a long period following a disruption of a goal
three main features (Martina & Tesser, 1989):
-- Over long periods of time
-- Counterproductive (dysfunctional)
-- Both automatic and controlled processes are involved (conscious kicking in when non-conscious control fails)
stages don't have to be sequential
if having an intrusive thought - rumination in a maladaprice way
e.g. in OCD
what is repeated becomes more accessible - creating association i mind - difficult to break
Rumination cannot be clearly categorised as either automatic or controlled
Martin & Tesser, 1989
"On the one hand, rumination is conscious and takes up capacity. On the other hand, it is often uncontrollable, and the instigating states may not be available to conscious awareness (i.e. the disrupted goals may be misidentified). In addition, people may be able to guide the content of ruminations to some degree, and they may be able to distract themselves from ruminating for a while. However, they may not be able to terminate the ruminations completely until they either satisfy or abandon the motivating goal. Thus, rumination lies somewhere between the extremes with regard to flexibility."
Intentional Thought
Intent is a key feature of controlled processes
Intent determines one's responsibilities for the consequences of a behaviour
-- aggression in self-defence vs premediated aggression
intent is defined by three main features
-- If there are options to think in a different way
-- If the default is rejected and the hard choice is made
-- If attention is paid to the implementation of the intent
e.g. trying to suppress stereotypes - not to go along with them
Consciousness
The Cognitive Monster
John Bargh (1999)
argues that the environment triggers motives ("auto-motives") and goals which then lead to behaviours
used the concept of the "cognitive monster" to represent the social thinker that does not have free will - and instead is driven by the environment
"No longer did the creature use simplifying categories and stereotypes by choice or strategy; their use had become an addiction-uncontrollable, not a matter of choice at all-and the creature's Will was powerless to do anything else"
Conscious Will
Wegner (2003)
Apparent mental causation (= thoughts - he called like that)
People infer that thought causes the action (drawing infrerences from our actions) because of:
-- Priority: a thought precedes an action (space and time continuum)
-- Consistency: a thought is consistent with an action
Exclusivity: there are no obvious alternative causes
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Illusory sense of agency
-- People can think that theri actions caused outcomes that they did not control
Illusory sense of control of someone else's behaviours
-- People can think that they caused someone else's outcome
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e.g. Thinking about an earthquake and hearing about an earthquake happening shortly after - link - consistency between thought and action
e.g. having to think about your football team - in order for it to win - attributing an action to own thought
Conscious Will
Libet (mid-1980s)
Research using EEG showed that there is a delay between our voluntary action and our becoming conscious of it
-- An intentional finger movement is preceded by some brain activity (i.e. the "readiness potential") by a minimum of approximately 550 ms
-- Participants had to recall the position of a clock as soon as they were aware of intending to move their finder
-- Participants' awareness followed the readiness potential by 350-400 ms
Consciousness
There have been different perspectives and definitions of consciousness:
William James
: stream of thought "teeming with objects and relations"
Rejection from anti-mentalistic behaviourists
Revival with cognitivism and social cognition:
-- Consciousness as attention
-- consciousness as an executor
-- Involved in learning to form new associations and for troubleshooting when automaticity fails
Methods to investigate Thought
We can only use indirect methods to access people's internal states:
Experience sampling
: asking participants about their current states (thoughts) at random moments
Random probe
s to ask people about their current thoughts
Think aloud
during on-line processing
Naturalistic social cognition:
people are videotaped during a social interaction and they then recall their thoughts when the video is replayed
Role play
with audiotaped or overheared converstions
