Think you’re totally in control of your thoughts? Maybe not as much as you think, according to a new San Francisco State University study that examines how thoughts that lead to actions enter our consciousness.
While we can “decide” to think about certain things, other information — including activities we have learnt like counting — can enter our subconscious and cause us to think about something else, whether we want to or not.
Psychologists call these dispositions “sets,” explains Ezequiel Morsella, one of four authors on a new study that examines how sets influence what we end up thinking about. “The data support the view that, when one is performing the desired action, conscious thoughts about alternative plans still occupy the mind, often insuppressibly,” said Morsella.
Understanding how sets work could have implications for the way we absorb information — and whether we choose to act or not. We think of our conscious minds as private and insulated from the outside world, says Morsella. Yet our “insulation” may be more permeable than we think.
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