The Role of Spontaneous Thought in Human Cognition

The benefits of deliberate, goal-directed thought processes to decision making have been understood for hundreds of years (Descartes, 1637/ 1998; Locke, 1690/1979). The idea that deliberately “thinking things through” is the best way to make a decision is at the basis of both classic (Janis & Mann, 1977; Simon, 1955) and contemporary perspectives on decision making (Bettman, Luce, & Payne, 1998; Kahneman, 2003). In contrast, our intuitions and folk wisdom often offer a different perspective, emphasizing the passage of time and the more spontaneous thought processes that occur without conscious control over the direction of the thought process (Bargh, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Trotschel, 2001)—a