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thought
You try to suppress thoughts and make them louder.
The 'ironic process theory' suggests that the effort to suppress a specific thought makes it more cognitively accessible.
When participants were instructed not to think of a white bear, the thought became a preoccupation that returned more frequently than in those who were not told to suppress it.
You cannot fight a thought by trying to banish it.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Daniel Wegner, 1994
- What the check found
- The claim correctly identifies the theory and its seminal author. The 1994 paper 'Ironic processes of mental control' in Psychological Review is the foundational text for the formal theory.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.