White Bear Phenomenon

The White Bear Phenomenon is a demonstration of the difficulty people have in suppressing a thought — by trying not to think of something, we find we continually think itFact|date=September 2008. The term originated with Fyodor Dostoevsky in this quote from "Winter notes on summer impressions": “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.”

The White Bear Phenomenon is commonly applied in thought suppression tasks in experimental psychology. Social psychologist Daniel Wegner and his colleagues first studied thought suppression in a laboratory setting in 1987 by instructing participants to avoid all thoughts of a white bear. The typical finding in such experiments is that suppressing thoughts of a white bear is mentally taxing (resulting in ego depletion), and that thought suppression attempts often result in the ironic process of engaging in and obsessing about the very thought that is being suppressed. The implications for these findings have since been applied to clinical settings where thought suppression is quite common (e.g., trying not to think of one's problems).

References

*Wegner, Daniel M. & Schneider, David J. (2003). The white bear story, "Psychological Inquiry", 14, 326-329
*Wegner, Daniel M., Schneider, David J., Carter, S.R. III, & White, T.L., Paradoxical effects of thought suppression, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987, 53, 636-647

See also

The Game (mind game)

External links

* [http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/ts.htm Daniel M. Wegner - Thought Suppression]