Daniel Wegner

What I wanna know is why my brain is so rebellious.

This brings us to Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner's ironic process theory.

Ironic process theory.

Wegner found that when you try to suppress a thought, your brain actually engages two distinct processes.

And this is really fun.

A psychologist named Daniel Wegner, he...

Or Weiner.

Wegner.

Everybody else, did you think of a pink elephant? So this is called ironic process theory.

Daniel Wegner was the pioneer of this work kind of in the late 1980s.

Actually, I think, uh, Fyodor Dostoevsky introduced it in one of his books in the mid-1800s.

He wrote something like, "I'm paraphrasing."

So if you're emotionally overwhelmed, just naming the emotion can actually help.

And the way, uh, Daniel Wegner has a theory called ironic process theory in which he talks about the fact that if we say do not do something under stress, w- the, the brain is more likely to do that.

So if-

Hmm

Then you might say, okay, well then in that case, the real cause of your sneeze is dust in the nose and the feeling that you're about to sneeze is epiphenomenal in the sense that it is not the real cause of your sneeze.

So Libet and also Dan Wegner make the argument that consciousness is It's not the real cause.

Really, the real cause of things is all in the unconscious, and then they make the leap that there is no free will.

And I think philosophy has been very focused on this sort of gain mistakenly.

Two, when you're framing your goals, try not to frame them using not.

Studies have shown, based on ironic process theory, which was discovered by Daniel Wegner and described by Daniel Wegner, if you put on eye tracking devices and you say you're trying to score a penalty and you say do not kick the ball to the right, your eye goes to the right.

So what you want to say is what you want to do.

You don't want to not lose your temper.

Yeah.

But Dave actually points to a specific study from 1994 by a psychologist named Daniel Wegner to prove why this happens mechanically.

Yes, Daniel Wegner's ironic process theory.

The groundwork for this started back in the late eighties, and it completely redefined how we understand thought suppression.

It is so interesting.

And the experiment Wegner designed is deceptively simple.

Right.

So he brought participants into a room, handed them a tape recorder, and gave them one basic instruction.