Daniel M. Wegner (1994) Pink Elephant Tramples White Bear: the Evasion of Suppression . Psycoloquy: 5(40) Paradoxical Cognition (2)
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Psycoloquy 5(40): Pink Elephant Tramples White Bear: the Evasion of Suppression

PINK ELEPHANT TRAMPLES WHITE BEAR: THE EVASION OF SUPPRESSION
Commentary on Navon on Paradoxical Cognition

Daniel M. Wegner
Department of Psychology, Gilmer Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903

dwegner@virginia.edu

Abstract

It is interesting to see what happens when one assumes that all psychological paradoxes are related. Navon (1994) has swept through several areas of psychology with this idea in mind, but with no coherent theory to allow such integration. The theory of ironic processes of mental control (Wegner, 1994) provides this coherence for a subset of these paradoxical effects, but Navon rejects it for unclear reasons.

Keywords

attention, automatic processes, consciousness, controlled processing, incidental learning, motor set, pain, panic attacks, paradoxical effects, positive feedback, psychosomatic disorders, recall failures

References