Читать книгу Social Psychology - Daniel W. Barrett - Страница 143

Studying social cognition provides insight into the questions of free will and rationality by demonstrating two important phenomena: the powerful role that nonconscious processes play in the determination of thought, feeling, and behavior, and showing us how seemingly objective, rational processes are affected by motivations, desires, and goals. If one defines free will as the execution of conscious decision-making, then one can’t help but conclude that much human behavior is not the product of free will. Rather, automatic processes—unintentional, occurring without conscious awareness, efficient, and uncontrollable—play a much greater role in social behavior than most people realize, undermining romantic notions of free will. Moreover, when we add in the overwhelming evidence that apparently objective, rational, cognition is often biased and subject to various shortcomings, we begin to build a new model of human nature. This is not a bad thing. These corrections to the naïve understanding do not downgrade the value of human life but instead provide us with the knowledge we need to improve our decision-making and enrich our lives.