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Maybe it helps to be conscious, after all

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2014

Roy F. Baumeister
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306–4301. baumeister@psy.fsu.eduhttp://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/baumeister.dp.html
Kathleen D. Vohs
Affiliation:
Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. vohsx005@umn.eduhttp://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/faculty-research/vohsx005/Kathleen_D_Vohs.aspx
E. J. Masicampo
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109. masicaej@wfu.eduhttp://www.wfu.edu/~masicaej/

Abstract

Psychologists debate whether consciousness or unconsciousness is most central to human behavior. Our goal, instead, is to figure out how they work together. Conscious processes are partly produced by unconscious processes, and much information processing occurs outside of awareness. Yet, consciousness has advantages that the unconscious does not. We discuss how consciousness causes behavior, drawing conclusions from large-scale literature reviews.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

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