Reflexive and Reflective Judgment Processes: A Social Cognitive Neuroscience Approach

One of the driving forces in social cognition has been the goal of understanding the mental mechanisms that can produce the large array of paradoxical findings that have excited social psychology students for half a century. From persuasion to person perception, decision making to dissonance, and judgment to job descrimination, the distinction between automatic and controlled processes has provided tremendous empirical leverage in the crusade to divide and conquer mental phenomena (in this volume, see Brewer; Chartrand & Jefferis; Galinsky, Martorana, & Ku; Johnston & Miles; cf. Kruglanski et al.). Controlled processes (sometimes referred to as explicit, conscious, or rational processes) typically involve some combination of effort, intention, and awareness, tend to interfere with one another, and are usually experienced as self-generated thoughts. Automatic processes (sometimes referred to as implicit, nonconscious, or intuitive processes) typically lack effort, intention, or awareness, tend not to interfere with one another, and are usually experienced as perceptions or feelings. Deciding how to budget one’s finances effectively to cover