14 DAY TRIAL // Recently, a large number of scientific studies was focused on the issue of decision-making, as experts wanted to identify when the best moment to decide something was, as well as what factors needed to be taken into account in these circumstances. While some of them found that it was best for people to sleep on it, as in to get a good night's rest before making the final decision, a new one argues that this may not be such a good idea. On the other hand, other studies revealed that it was best to leave complex decisions to the unconscious mind, whereas others underlined the fact that test subjects in the lab made the best choice in the first instance, based on gut instinct.
Experts from the Ohio University in Athens, led by Psychologist Daniel Lassiter, proposed that people tended to make assessments and decisions on the spot, rather than thinking about them. In their studies, they applied the same methodology as the original 2006 study that proposed the theory of unconscious selection. In the previous research, scientists discovered that people who were left to think about objects were more likely to make poor choices, whereas those who solved anagrams – an indicator of unconscious thought – tended to fare a lot better.
Lassiter postulated that the 2006 study was wrong because it never took into account the fact that people might actually be making up their minds as soon as they saw an object, and not after thinking or solving anagrams, NewScientist reports. In a slightly modified form of the previous research, the OU experts showed participants cars and told them to memorize their attributes, rather than deciding on which one they would buy. In a radically different outcome than in the 2006 investigation, Lassiter found that test subjects were far more likely to make better decisions when thinking about them than when solving anagrams.
Ap Dijksterhuis, the researcher from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands who conducted the previous research, said that, since 2006, he had also run other researches, which further proved his theory, and that he planned to submit these papers for publication as soon as possible. The scientist also highlighted the fact that our unconscious mind was at work at all times, and that we couldn't even figure it out, because its main purpose was to guide us without interfering.