Driven to Distraction: The Impact of Distracter Type on Unconscious Decision Making

Abstract

While there is a variety of wonderful ways to take a break from work, is there a type of distraction that is actually more productive? Studies on the deliberation-without-attention effect (Dijksterhuis, 2004; Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, & Van Baaren, 2006) show that a period of distraction while making complex decisions can actually lead to better decisions than a period of conscious deliberation. Although there are a number of activities that will distract participants from decision-making tasks, we investigated if certain types of distracter tasks are better for demonstrating the deliberation-without-attention effect. Since most people realistically take a break with undemanding forms of activity, we hypothesized that undemanding distracter tasks will yield the best results. In Experiment 1, participants were given a choice between four different cars but before they made their decision they instructed (1) to think consciously about the choices, (2) listen to their own music with a portable digital mus...