| When faced with complex problems,people often think that hard thinking is good for coming up with better solutions.But other researchers have found that when solving certain complex problems,the processing results of unconscious thinking are better than conscious thinking.In the fields of persuasion,clinical diagnosis,talent selection and creative problem solving,the advantages of unconscious thinking over conscious thinking have been found.At present,the focus of research in the field of unconscious thinking has shifted from debating the existence of unconscious thinking and its advantages and disadvantages with conscious thinking to exploring the processing mechanism of unconscious thinking.Studies have shown that unconscious thinking has different processing characteristics from conscious thinking in terms of capacity,rules,convergence and divergence,and there are neural mechanisms different from conscious thinking,but so far there is no research on what strategy unconscious thinking uses to solve problems.Strategy plays a role in guiding individuals how to manipulate information in the problem-solving process,and it makes people’s cognitive activities an organized continuum.Multiple strategies can be used to solve the same problem,and which strategy can be used directly affects the accuracy,rate,and portability of problem resolution.According to the initial state of the problem to the target state of the problem solution,the increase and decrease of its constituent elements can be divided into addition strategy and subtraction strategy.The method of problem solving by adding elements(e.g.,more rules and regulations to improve management,more departments to increase work efficiency,etc.)is called an additive strategy,while a subtractive strategy is the opposite.Additive strategies consume fewer cognitive resources than subtraction strategies,but do not guarantee the quality of problem solving.Individuals tend to expend the least effort in solving problems.It can be seen that people tend to use additive strategies to solve problems when thinking about problems in daily life.So,does unconscious thought tend to resort to subtraction strategies to solve problems?The study adopts the classical unconscious thought paradigm and examines this research question through three experiments.The experiment 1 first randomly presented the participants with an "additional" decoration plan(to achieve the purpose of making the apartment more beautiful by adding items on the basis of the original apartment),a "subtraction" decoration plan(to achieve the purpose of making the apartment more beautiful by reducing items on the basis of the original apartment)and a replacement decoration plan,and then presented the original apartment picture and told the participant that the purpose of the experiment was to choose the best decoration plan,and then asked the participant to make a choice after completing the distraction task,or make a choice after thinking hard.The experimental results showed that the proportion of participants in the unconscious thought group who chose the "subtraction" decoration plan in the process of completing the task was much higher than that in the conscious thought group.When the information is presented,the participant is very likely to analyze and judge it and make a choice,that is,online judgment.To rule out that the results of Experiment 1may be confounding effects of this factor,Experiment 2 added an immediate decision group,which requires participants to write answers immediately after reading the information.The results showed that the proportion of participants in the unconscious thought group choosing the "subtraction" decoration scheme was significantly higher than that in the conscious thought group and the immediate decision-making group,and there was no difference in the proportion of participants in the conscious thought group and the immediate decision-making group choosing the "subtraction" decoration scheme.Experiment 3 re-examines the results of experiments 1 and 2 by replacing the experimental materials with additive and subtractive travel program materials presented in text form.The experimental results still showed that the proportion of participants in the unconscious thought group choosing the "subtraction" decoration scheme was significantly higher than that in the conscious thought group and the immediate decisionmaking group.The above experimental results show that unconscious thought tends to use subtractive strategies to solve problems. |
