It turned out to be reactive control– or rejecting the unwanted associations after you have already thought of them.
“This type of reactive control can be particularly problematic because, as our findings suggest, thoughts are self-reinforcing,” the authors explained.
In other words, the more often you think a thought, the greater its memory strength and the greater chance it will reoccur.
“Every time we have to reactively reject an unwanted association, it has the potential to become even stronger,” the authors continued.
“Critically, however, we also found that people can partially preempt this process if they want to ensure that this thought comes to mind as little as possible.”
Thus, tackling negative memories, experiences, or triggers head-on and attempting to create new associations may be the most effective route to mitigating unwanted thoughts from randomly resurfacing.
To read the study’s complete findings published in PLOS Computational Biology, visit the link here.
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