London, Aug 31 (IANS) While setting goals one should go by his or her gut feeling, as more often than not it will be right, say researchers.
According to a study by Canada’s University of Alberta, when it comes to working out where the future lies, the unconscious mind is both smarter than we think and can be a great motivator, the Daily Mail reported.
Alberta School of Business researcher Sarah Moore and colleagues from Duke and Cornell universities say that unconscious feelings about objects in the environment influence the pursuit of long-term goals.
Their study explores how the unconscious mind responds to objects in relation to an individual’s goals – and how the unconscious continues to influence feelings about these objects once the goals are reached, whether or not the outcome has been successful.
‘In the past few years, we recognised that some of [Sigmund] Freud’s ideas on the unconscious mind were, in fact, correct and that a lot of our decision-making and a lot of our feelings are based on things that we’re not really aware of,’ said Moore.
‘In our study, we looked at how our unconscious feelings about objects in the environment influence how we pursue goals.’