潛意識思考及意識思考對困難問題決策之影響

Abstract

潛意識思考理論主張，在複雜且困難的作業情境下，潛意識思考所做的決策會優於意識思考所做的決策。本研究以兩個有關手機喜好度評估之實驗驗證上述假設，實驗一的情境較簡單，實驗二則為較複雜的情境，結果發現無論實驗一或實驗二之結果均顯示，意識思考組與潛意識思考組對手機優勢性所做之決策並無不同。然而依區辨手機之難易度將實驗參與者分為兩組後則發現，對於易區辨理想手機與不理想手機之參與者而言，其決策之效果並不因思考方式的不同而有所差異，但是對於不易區辨理想手機與不理想手機之參與者而言，則呈現潛意識思考優於意識思考之決策的結果。綜合本研究之結果可知，不同的思考方式對於不同難度的作業具有不同的效果，在複雜且困難的作業情境下，潛意識思考的決策表現優於意識思考之決策表現，但是作業難易度的界定應以參與者之能力為考量之依據。此外，本研究結果在教育方面之應用，於文中亦有所討論。

The role of unconscious and conscious thought in making cell phone preference decisions was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with a simple decision problem related to cell phone preferences. In Experiment 2, a more complex problem related to cell phone preferences was presented to the participants. Results from these two experiments showed that unconscious thinkers made no better decisions than conscious thinkers did. The participants were then divided into two groups according to the difficulty in making cell phone preference decisions. It was found that, for the group of participants who made cell phone preference decisions without much difficulty, unconscious thinkers made no better decisions than conscious thinkers did. However, unconscious thinkers were found to make better decisions than conscious thinkers did for the group of participants who made the decisions with relatively much difficulty. Results of this study suggested that decisions about the issues which seemed to be complex from the viewpoint of the participants could be better approached by unconscious thought. Possible applications for the results to education were also discussed.