Effective social interaction and personal adaptation requires that people often try to influence their own minds. People engage in such mental control when they try to stop thinking about something, for example, or when they attempt to avoid unwanted or inappropriate emotions or desires. Attempts to control mental states often fail, however, and past research suggests that this happens because mental control produces ironic processes unconscious failure-monitoring processes that promote the appearance of the mental states people most hope to avoid. This is why unwanted thoughts and emotions often arise at precisely the worst times.
The specific aim of this project is to see whether such ironic processes are overcome when mental control is practiced repeatedly and becomes automatized Like any practiced skill, mental control should become more effective with rehearsal, and this research examines its possibility by focusing both on rehearsal of mental control in the laboratory and on the testing of special populations who are likely to have engaged in chronic mental control in the past. But also like any skill that has become automatic, mental control can be disrupted whenever the person renews conscious control and monitoring of the process. This fragile automaticity hypothesis is tested in these studies, to see whether remembering that one is trying to control one's mind can reintroduce ironic thoughts and emotions even after mental control has become automatic. This research should have several key implications for mental health. The automatization of mental control processes, and its accompanying fragile automaticity, may be implicated in the etiology of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and eating disorders, and may also underlie social interfactional problems that arise from error in the control of socially inappropriate behavior.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
2R01MH049127-06
Application #
2033911
Study Section
Social and Group Processes Review Committee (SGP)
Project Start
1992-06-01
Project End
2002-05-31
Budget Start
1997-08-01
Budget End
1998-05-31
Support Year
6
Fiscal Year
1997
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Virginia
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
001910777
City
Charlottesville
State
VA
Country
United States
Zip Code
22904
Mason, W Alex; Chmelka, Mary B; Trudeau, Linda et al. (2017) Gender Moderation of the Intergenerational Transmission and Stability of Depressive Symptoms from Early Adolescence to Early Adulthood. J Youth Adolesc 46:248-260
Mason, W Alex; Spoth, Richard L (2012) Sequence of alcohol involvement from early onset to young adult alcohol abuse: differential predictors and moderation by family-focused preventive intervention. Addiction 107:2137-48
Mason, W Alex; Spoth, Richard L (2011) Thrill seeking and religiosity in relation to adolescent substance use: tests of joint, interactive, and indirect influences. Psychol Addict Behav 25:683-96
Ebert, Jeffrey P; Wegner, Daniel M (2010) Time warp: authorship shapes the perceived timing of actions and events. Conscious Cogn 19:481-9
Moore, James W; Wegner, Daniel M; Haggard, Patrick (2009) Modulating the sense of agency with external cues. Conscious Cogn 18:1056-64
Gray, Kurt; Wegner, Daniel M (2009) Moral typecasting: divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients. J Pers Soc Psychol 96:505-20
Wegner, Daniel M (2009) How to think, say, or do precisely the worst thing for any occasion. Science 325:48-50
Pronin, Emily; Jacobs, Elana; Wegner, Daniel M (2008) Psychological effects of thought acceleration. Emotion 8:597-612
Najmi, Sadia; Wegner, Daniel M (2008) The gravity of unwanted thoughts: Asymmetric priming effects in thought suppression. Conscious Cogn 17:114-24
Kozak, Megan; Weylin Sternglanz, R; Viswanathan, Uma et al. (2008) The role of thought suppression in building mental blocks. Conscious Cogn 17:1123-30

Showing the most recent 10 out of 30 publications