Langer (1989) reminds us that many of our actions are "mindless,"
i.e. done automatically without weighing the rationality or the pros and
cons for the action before responding. Rather than mindless, it may be
more accurate to label a good bit of our behavior as self-deceptive or
self-conning. For instance, when asked "why are you doing that?"
people frequently give an explanation quickly and confidently, but it is
often inaccurate (they overlook important factors or are unaware of
some response they made and so on). Likewise, people have lots of
silly ideas and feelings about their own behavior, such as "I can tell
when someone is looking at me" or "I think I have a pretty good
chance of winning the lottery." We could also cite as foolish the denial
of alcoholics, smokers, over-eaters, non-studying students and others.
In any case, whether we are just unthinking about what we are doing
or unwittingly fooling ourselves, Langer's point is that greater
awareness (mindfulness) is needed for more rational self-direction and
greater self-control. Freud would say we haven't learned much yet; we
still need to become aware of our conscious and unconscious
cognition, including repression, rationalization, denial and other
defense mechanisms.