It has recently been claimed by several authors that all behaviour is causally determined by unconscious mechanisms, and not under our conscious control. What this amounts to is that none of our everyday behaviour can be regarded as intentional, as action. The aim of the present paper is to discuss the evidence on which this claim is based. The conclusion is that though numerous psychological phenomena (like perception, memory, feeling, mood, mannerisms and automatisms) have unconscious determinants, the data do not show that everyday behaviours like talking, writing, working and moving one's body are outside our conscious control.
Ansfield, M.E. , & Wegner, D.M. (1996). The feeling of doing. In P.M. Gollwitzer & J.A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 482-506). New York: Guilford.
3.
Banks, G. , Short, P., Martinez, A.J., Latchaw, R., Ratcliff, G., & Boller, F. (1989). The alien hand syndrome: Clinical and postmortem findings. Archives of Neurology, 46, 456-459.
4.
Bargh, J.A. , & Chartrand, T.L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54, 462-479.
5.
Bargh, J.A. , Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behaviour: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 230-244.
6.
Brasil-Neto, J.P. , Pascual-Leone, A., Valls-Sole, J., Cohen, L.G., & Hallett, M. (1992). Focal transcranial magnetic stimulation and response bias in a forced-choice task. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 55, 964-966.
7.
Brody, N. (1987). Some thoughts on the unconscious. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13, 293-298.
8.
Chen, M. , & Bargh, J.A. (1999). Nonconscious approach and avoidance behavioural consequences of the automatic evaluation effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 215-224.
9.
Davidson, D. (1980). Actions and events. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
10.
Flanagan, O. (1997). Conscious inessentialism and the epiphenomenalist suspicion. In N. Block, O. Flanagan, & G. Guzeldere (Eds.), The nature of consciousness (pp. 357-373). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
11.
Frankfurt, H.G. (1978). The problem of action. American Philosophical Quarterly, 15, 157-162.
12.
Kirsch, I. , & Lynn, S.J. (1999). Automaticity in clinical psychology. American Psychologist, 54, 504-515.
13.
Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 529-566.
14.
Nisbett, R.E. , & Wilson, T.D.C. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231-259.
15.
Park, D.C. (1999). Acts of will?American Psychologist, 54, 461.
16.
Sacks, O. (1984). A leg to stand on. London: Picador.
17.
Searle, J.R. (1992). The rediscovery of the mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
18.
Stoutland, F. (1970). The logical connection argument. American Philosophical Quarterly, 4, 117-129.
19.
Vollmer, F. (1998). How do I move my body?Journal of Mind and Behavior, 4, 369-378.
20.
Vollmer, F. (1999). Agent causality. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
21.
von Wright, G.H. (1971). Explanation and understanding. London: Routledge.
22.
Wegner, D.M. , & Wheatley, T. (1999). Sources of the experience of will. American Psychologist, 54, 480-492.
