It is extremely common to find that we end up doing or saying something we are desperately trying to avoid. Scientists seem to have discovered the reason behind this. The very act of trying to avoid saying or doing something can sometimes cause it to happen.
“When these things do happen we sort of smile and look the other way,” said Daniel Wegner, a psychologist at Harvard University. “The curious thing is it’s the desire not to do those things that seems to increase the likelihood of doing them.”
In the July 3 issue of the journal, Science, Daniel Wegner has published a study in which he has accumulated evidence that implies that many of our embarrassing moments are the result of miscommunications between conscious and unconscious mental processes.
Here is how Wegner explains the phenomenon of social gaffe. Our first line of defense is conscious, in which we intentionally try to avoid thinking about something we consider inappropriate. We typically try to distract ourselves from thinking inappropriate thought by thinking of other things.
This is what happens in our unconscious mind- Our unconscious mind keeps searching for these inappropriate thoughts. As and when it finds an inappropriate thought, the conscious mind squashes it by thinking about something else.
But, this system has its own pitfalls, warns Wegner. When we are stressed or have a lot on our minds, this system cannot be expected to work perfectly. Stress, in particular, can interfere with our conscious effort to avoid a thought or action. What happens then is that our unconscious mind loses track of what it was doing and confusion takes place.
“The conscious process of trying to do the right thing is hampered, and the unconscious process is free then to increase its sway over your behavior and mind,” Wegner told LiveScience.
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