Unconscious intuition or conscious analysis? Critical questions for the Deliberation-Without-Attention paradigm
Journal Title: Judgment and Decision Making - Year 2011, Vol 6, Issue 4
Abstract
The Deliberation without Attention (DWA) effect refers to apparent improvements in decision-making following a period of distraction. It has been presented as evidence for beneficial unconscious cognitive processes. We identify two major concerns with this claim: first, as these demonstrations typically involve subjective preferences, the effects of distraction cannot be objectively assessed as beneficial; second, there is no direct evidence that the DWA manipulation promotes unconscious decision processes. We describe two tasks based on the DWA paradigm in which we found no evidence that the distraction manipulation led to decision processes that are subjectively unconscious, nor that it reduced the influence of presentation order upon performance. Crucially, we found that a lack of awareness of decision process was associated with poorer performance, both in terms of subjective preference measures used in traditional DWA paradigm and in an equivalent task where performance can be objectively assessed. Therefore, we argue that reliance on conscious memory itself can explain the data. Thus the DWA paradigm is not an adequate method of assessing beneficial unconscious thought.
Authors and Affiliations
Balazs Aczel, Bence Lukacs, Judit Komlos and Michael R. F. Aitken
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP677806
- DOI -
- Views 123
- Downloads 0
Translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and reliability, of the Italian version of the Passive Risk Taking (PRT) Scale
The concept of “passive risk taking”, which refers to the risk brought on or magnified by inaction, has recently appeared in the literature on risk taking. Keinan and Bereby-Meyer (2012) have developed a scale to measure...
Behind the veil of ignorance: Self-serving bias in climate change negotiations
Slowing climate change will almost certainly require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but agreement on who should reduce emissions by how much is difficult, in part because of the self-serving bias—the tendency t...
Taking the sting out of choice: Diversification of investments
It is often the case that one can choose a mix of alternative options rather than have to select one option only. Such an opportunity to diversify may blunt the risk involved in all-or-none choice. Here we investigate re...
The effect of military service on soldiers’ time preferences — Evidence from Israel
The current field study compares the time preferences of young adults of similar ages but in two very different environments, one more dangerous and uncertain than the other. Soldiers, college students and a control grou...
Exploring the time-saving bias: How drivers misestimate time saved when increasing speed
According to the time-saving bias, drivers underestimate the time saved when increasing from a low speed and overestimate the time saved when increasing from a relatively high speed. Previous research used a specific typ...