- Research out of Carnegie Mellon and Harvard suggests that people tend to give more weight to thoughts that “come out of nowhere” versus ideas that arrive through a deliberate process
- Rather than dismissing spontaneous thoughts as meaningless or random, people tend to assume these thoughts contain more meaningful insight
- Even on important topics such as commitment to current romantic partners, people tend to think thoughts out of nowhere reveal their true preferences
Source: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen E. Giblin, Michael I. Norton. The (perceived) meaning of spontaneous thoughts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014
