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Listserv Message Center
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Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? |
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| Posted by: | Roy Baumeister |
| Title/Position: | Professor |
| School/Organization: | Florida State University |
| Sent to listserv of: | SPSP, SESP, SPSSI |
| Date posted: | December 5th, 2010 |
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Dear Colleagues,
About a year ago, we sent a call to the listserve asking for papers relevant to the question of whether consciousness causes behavior.
Thank you for the tremendous response we got. A great deal of work was submitted to us. We read everything. Because of space limits and conceptual pressures, we ended up hewing to a fairly strict definition of what constitutes behavior, and we could only use studies that involved experimental manipulations of conscious thoughts, states, or processes. Nonetheless, we used a considerable amount of what the listserve people sent us.
The results of our work are in press at Annual Review of Psychology and will be published shortly. It is available for download at:
http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/165663.pdf
The abstract is copied at the end of this message.
Now, as to whether consciousness causes behavior; briefly, the answer is yes, there is abundant evidence that conscious thoughts cause behavior — though generally the effects are indirect and often indicate extensive dependence on unconscious processes. Consciousness unites behavior across time, integrates behavior with social and cultural environment, and is prominent in situations involving multiple alternatives.
Writing this paper taught us that it may be time to stop thinking in terms of whether some behavior is caused by conscious vs. unconscious processes. We think it is likely that almost all human behavior stems from a combination of conscious and unconscious processes.
Thanks again,
Roy Baumeister
EJ Masicampo
Kathleen Vohs
Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? Available for download at:
http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/165663.pdf
Abstract
Everyday intuitions suggest full conscious control of behavior, but evidence of unconscious causation and automaticity has sustained the contrary view that conscious thought has little or no impact on behavior. We review studies with random assignment to experimental manipulations of conscious thought and behavioral dependent measures. Topics include mental practice and simulation, anticipation, planning, reflection and rehearsal, reasoning, counterproductive effects, perspective taking, self-affirmation, framing, communication, and overriding automatic responses. The evidence for conscious causation of behavior is profound, extensive, adaptive, multifaceted, and empirically strong. However, conscious causation is often indirect and delayed, and it depends on interplay with unconscious processes. Consciousness seems especially useful for enabling behavior to be shaped by nonpresent factors and by social and cultural information, as well as for dealing with multiple competing options or impulses. It is plausible that almost every human behavior comes from a mixture of conscious and unconscious processing.
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