Restrictive and dynamic conceptions of the unconscious: perspectives from moral and developmental psychology

Abstract

Newell & Shanks' (N&S's) conceptualization of the unconscious is overly restrictive, compared to standard social psychological accounts. The dichotomy between distal and proximal cues is a weak point in their argument and does not circumvent the existence of unconscious influences on decision making. Evidence from moral and developmental psychology indicates that decision making results from a dynamic mixture of conscious and unconscious processes.