The Unconscious Rules [Video]

Thought, emotion and perception below the level of conscious awareness holds sway over our waking lives

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Freud spent much of his storied career trying to unravel how and why unconscious influences affect us. He was undoubtedly right about the importance of subliminal tweaks shaping the way we view the world. But social psychologists have a more modern take on the role of the unconscious, based on more formal methods of experimentation, rather than the case histories Freud used to derive his theories. John Bargh of Yale University provides an overview of what social psychologists have learned about unconscious processes, both in the January issue of Scientific American and in this video of a talk filmed at the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Video Courtesy of the University of Missouri

Gary Stix is the former senior editor of mind and brain topics at Scientific American.

More by Gary Stix
Scientific American Magazine Vol 310 Issue 1This article was published with the title “The Unconscious Rules [Video]” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 310 No. 1 ()
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican012014-61v6eTHvLCkdiN1CD8P2yx

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