AUTOMATICITY AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

The German philosopher Ernst Platner did not introduce the term “ unconscious ”
until the 18th century, but the importance of what we now call unconscious
processes was recognized earlier by many influential thinkers such as St. Thomas
Aquinas, Kepler, Paracelcus, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, and da Vinci. It may
well be that the first written reference to the possibility of unconscious psychological
processes was made in the third century AD by the Greek philosopher Plotinus, who
remarked that “ the absence of a conscious perception is no proof of the absence of
mental activity ” (Koestler, 1964, p. 148).
Two distinct observations serve as the pillars on which our current knowledge of
automaticity and unconscious processes stand. The first is that some of our behavior
does not feel voluntary. It seems to be caused by the situation we are in. It feels
automatic. This idea is of central importance for social psychology as a science and
also touches on the big philosophical question of whether people have free will. More
than 250 years ago, David Hartley (1749) observed that “ the Motions of the body
are of two kinds, automatic and voluntary . ” Whereas Hartley did not yet specify
which of the two is the more frequent, many others have been much bolder. Some
have even suggested that voluntary behavior is nothing more than an illusion, a
powerful trick of consciousness. As the novelist Tom Wolfe said (2004, p. 283), “ Let
as you say you pick up a rock and you throw it. And in midflight you give that rock
consciousness and a rational mind. That little rock will think it has free ill and will give
you a highly rational account of why it has decided to take the route it is taking. ” The
second observation is that the capacity of consciousness is small (Miller, 1956;
Norretranders, 1998). Filmmaker David Lynch once called it our “ golfball – size
consciousness ” (Lynch, 2006, p. 28), and many people, especially those working in
creative areas, have made similar comments. We are confronted with so much
information and the capacity of consciousness is so minimal that it follows logically
that we must have unconscious processes. The British philosopher John Norris, a
contemporary of Descartes and Locke whom he vehemently criticized, said: “ We
may have ideas of which we are not conscious . . .
There are infinitely more ideas impressed on our minds than we can possibly attend
to ” (Koestler, 1964, p. 150). So here we are. The foundations of modern social
psychological thinking about human behavior are humbling as well as salutary:
Some behavior is automatic, and consciousness is a golf ball. Although those
foundations may be easy to understand, the vast structure that has been built on top
of them is highly complex. Exactly how much of our behavior is automatic? Is
automaticity only important for relatively unimportant actions, or does it play a role in
our most important endeavours as well? Conversely, what happens when we feel we
control our behavior? How “ real ” is control? What do we do with our vast
unconscious processing capacity? How sophisticated is our unconsciousness?
Finally, what is consciousness good for?
This analysis starts with a description of four traditional lines of thought and research
that all emphasize the importance of unconscious or automatic processes (or both).
Subsequently, some key concepts are defined against the background of current
(partly neuroscientific) research on attention, consciousness, and the unconscious.
In the large middle section, a number of important social psychological processes
are discussed, and the extent to which these processes are automatic is analyzed.
The subsequent section focuses on control, and finally, the chapter ends with a brief
explanation of the prevailing view in neuroscience and cognitive science on the
function of consciousness.