Daniel M. Wegner: Clever hands: Studies in uncontrollable intelligence

Abstract

We normally think of intelligence as a voluntary capacity. If we are intelligent enough to know the answer to a question, it seems we also ought to be intelligent enough not to reveal our answer if we don't want to do so. Under certain conditions, however, calculating how to prevent knowledge from informing our actions may require more cunning than we can muster. This series of experiments examines these conditions to explore (1) how the tendency to answer correctly when the answer is known may influence behavior despite attempted suppression, and (2) how such intelligent behavior then becomes available for attribution to sources other than the self, so giving rise to a range of potentially serious errors in social cognition.