From: Scientific American
What Do Polar Bears and Social Faux Pas Have in Common?
Scientific American:
Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a psychological goldmine. If you can think it, chances are he wrote about it. But as far as I know, only once has his writing directly inspired psychological research—and it was his non-fiction at that. Specifically, his reminiscences of travels to the European continent, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. One chapter in particular, “An Essay Concerning the Bourgeois,” has sparked some of the most prominent social psychology research of the last twenty years: Daniel Wegner’s studies of thought suppression.
In his essay, Dostoyevsky poses a challenge to his readers: rather than doing what writers normally ask you to do—that is, think—try not to think. And what’s more, try not to think of something quite specific – and see how far you can get.
Read the whole story: Scientific American
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