1st Edition
The Experience of Thinking How feelings from mental processes influence cognition and behaviour
When retrieving a quote from memory, evaluating a testimony’s truthfulness, or deciding which products to buy, people experience immediate feelings of ease or difficulty, of fluency or disfluency. Such "experiences of thinking" occur with every cognitive process, including perceiving, processing, storing, and retrieving information, and they have been the defining element of a vibrant field of scientific inquiry during the last four decades.
This book brings together the latest research on how such experiences of thinking influence cognition and behavior. The chapters present recent theoretical developments and describe the effects of these influences, as well as the practical implications of this research. The book includes contributions from the leading scholars in the field and provides a comprehensive survey of this expanding area. This integrative overview will be invaluable to researchers, teachers, students, and professionals in the field of social and cognitive psychology.
Biography
Christian Unkelbach is Professor for General Psychology at the University of Cologne, Germany. He is currently Associate Editor of the journals Experimental Psychology and Social Psychology. His research focuses on processing fluency, valence asymmetries, prejudice against Muslims, and sport psychology. He has authored numerous articles in international journals covering these topics.
Rainer Greifeneder is Professor for Social Psychology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. His research focuses on experiences of thinking, affective feelings, intuitive decision making, consumer choice, and ostracism. He has authored numerous articles in international journals covering these topics.
"The book provides an excellent overview about subjective experiences in thinking. The list of contributors is impressive and the single chapters fulfilled the high expectations that I had. An interesting, enjoyable, and "fluent" read recommendable for students and social cognition researchers alike." - Tina Glaser, University of Bielefeld, Germany
"Unkelbach (Univ. of Cologne, Germany) and Greifeneder (Univ. of Basel, Switzerland) seek to refine the arguably subjective concept of fluency, or "ease of processing." To that end, they have gathered 15 diverse contributions by an international group of prominent researchers to present recent theoretical developments and research about the experience of thinking. The breadth of topics also supports the editors' contention that fluency is a fundamental aspect of human judgment and behavior. Summing Up: Recommended." - A. I. Piper, New College of Florida, CHOICE
