In Search of the Prize: Is Conscious Awareness a Good Thing? A review of The New Unconscious

Robert D. Mather                       Jerri C. Jones
University of Central Oklahoma   University of Central Oklahoma

Editor: Kelli Vaughn-Blount served as Action Editor for this article.

Why do we do things? As humans, we are uniquely equipped to reflect upon our own existence. We constantly strive to understand why others behave as they behave as well as to understand how our own actions bring about actions of others (Heider, 1958). We commonly make decisions and do so with the widespread belief that more awareness and more thought lead to better decisions (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006). It is intuitive among humans-if you want to make a good decision, you must think really hard. Otherwise, people would get married on first dates and never make it to a second real estate showing. If we took awareness from decisions, we'd be left with a society in which people close-mindedly evaluated each potential mate, each house, each decision as "yes/no" rather than comparing options, for how can we compare options without awareness? Humans would be like other animals—breeding and feeding without thought to the consequence. Awareness must be what separates us from other animals, which means awareness must be a "good thing," right?

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