Overcoming Mindlessness

As the example of driving to the office shows, we often process information au­tomatically, without much conscious thought. We frequently act like “lazy organisms”, saving our conscious attention for important situations and spending much of our time in what is called mindless or auto­matic processing. We process mindlessly when we rely on old routines and mental habits to give us information about the world.

Mindless processing has its advantages. If our schemata match reality, mindless processing can be adaptive and efficient. Indeed, without some kind of automatic processing, the amount of attention we would have to use for sim­ply getting through a day would overwhelm us. On the other hand, mindlessness has serious disadvantages. When we accept fa­miliar schemata uncritically, we give up control over our decisions and behav­iors. We can be easily influenced to do things we might not do otherwise and see things that aren’t there.

The opposite of mindless processing is mindful processing. When we are mindful we actively think about our world, controlling it rather than being controlled by it. When we act mindfully, we can overcome auto­matic assumptions and biases. By expending a little effort, we may be able to override automatic processing and achieve more control over perception.

 

Information Processing: Communicating for Clarity

Communication effectiveness depends on realistic message processing. Yet per­ception, as we have seen, is open to distortions and biases. If we often see and hear what we wish rather than what exists in fact, how can we communicate accurately and fairly? Let’s have a look at different ways in which message senders can make it easier for receivers to process information.