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The Primary Processes: A Preliminary

Exploration of A-Rational Mentation from
an Evolutionary Viewpoint
Susan E. Cutler Ph.D. & Linda A.W. Brakel M.D.
Published online: 03 Dec 2014.

To cite this article: Susan E. Cutler Ph.D. & Linda A.W. Brakel M.D. (2014) The Primary
Processes: A Preliminary Exploration of A-Rational Mentation from an Evolutionary Viewpoint,
Psychoanalytic Inquiry: A Topical Journal for Mental Health Professionals, 34:8, 792-809, DOI:
10.1080/07351690.2014.968022
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Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 34:792809, 2014

Copyright Melvin Bornstein, Joseph Lichtenberg, Donald Silver
ISSN: 0735-1690 print/1940-9133 online
DOI: 10.1080/07351690.2014.968022

The Primary Processes: A Preliminary Exploration of

A-Rational Mentation from an Evolutionary Viewpoint

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Susan E. Cutler, Ph.D. and Linda A.W. Brakel, M.D.

In this article we investigate research on nonhuman animal cognition revealing the predominance of
primary processes-like operations that are effective and adaptive from an evolutionary perspective.
But first and from a different direction, we review a body of recently popular empirical work on
human heuristics and biases that proposes System 1 and System 2 as a dual-process model of cognition and emotion; this without acknowledging Freuds primary and secondary processes. Thus, we
explore the parallels between primary process and System 1, as we evaluate the case for the evolutionary nature of primary process. We guide the reader through literature on animal cognition and
that of System 1 biases and heuristics to provide the psychoanalytic reader with the opportunity to
make important links to psychoanalytic concepts.

Psychoanalysis and evolution are two of the most far-reaching, bold, and generative theories ever
elaborated. Although mostly thought of as orthogonal to one another, there are ways that they
do intersect. Broadly, both are, in some sense, all about sex. Evolution turns on natural selection, consequently survival success, which can be (somewhat reductively) defined as competitive
reproductive fitness among genetic variants. Struggles within species, between species, and with
the environment are entailed. For psychoanalysis, sexuality is ultimately about the drives, biologically aiming toward survival and reproduction, psychologically aiming toward pleasure and
fulfillment. Here, too, there are inherent conflicts, intra- and interpsychically, with other people
and with reality.
But there are potentially more specific areas of intersection, too. Our aim in this article concerns one of these. Namely, we intend to explore a particular aspect of psychoanalytic theorythe
primary processes and a-rational mentationfrom an evolutionary perspective. We do this in
two different ways. First, there appears to be an analog to primary process from the field of
academic psychology; this analog has been called System 1 from the domain of dual process theories of cognition (cf. Kahneman, 2011; Stanovich & West, 2000). These dual process theories
have attempted to understand evolutionary influences on human cognition, and have done so by
showing the overwhelmingly common use of biases and heuristics in tasks of reasoning and judgment. Second, there have been a number of animal cognition studies, revealing much primary
process-like mentation that seems to be adaptive, promoting selective fitness, and, therefore,
Dr. Cutler is Adjunct Faculty, Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan; and Faculty Member, Michigan
Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Brakel is Associate Professor (adj), Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan;
Research Associate, Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan; and Faculty Member, Michigan Psychoanalytic
Institute.

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significant from an evolutionary viewpoint. We examine findings from these two literatures
to evaluate evidence for consistency between Freudian theory on primary and secondary process, and evolutionary models of cognition. The four questions below indicate the course of
exploration:
1. Is primary process mentation adaptive for humans, increasing their evolutionary fitness?
To address this question, we discuss parallels between dual process models within evolutionary psychology of the two systems of thinking and Freuds dual process model of
primary and secondary process.
2. Do we see evidence for primary process thinking in nonhuman animals? An affirmative
answer would provide further evidence in favor of an evolutionary history for these arational/primary processes in humans
3. Is there evidence for the adaptiveness of primary process thinking in nonhuman animals?
4. Even if primary process mentation is an evolutionary adaptation, how does one understand
within evolutionary models the mal-adaptations related to primary process?

WHAT IS PRIMARY PROCESS MENTATION?

Psychoanalytic View
Primary and secondary processes are two formally different types of mentation, characterized
by Freud (as early as 1900) as functioning according to different operating principles. Secondary
process thinking is the largely rational, rule-following, ordinary logic of adults in the alert, waking
state. Primary process thinking, in contrast, is a-rational, associatively based, with displacements,
condensations, parts-for-whole, and categorizations by inessential features, frequent among the
modes of operation employed.
When the secondary processes predominate, psychological events look continuous, caused,
explainable, and rational. Primary process thinking, on the other hand, is clearly not rational.
Here is a rather striking example: A 55-year-old patient, the mother of two adult children, was
admitted to the inpatient psychiatric ward suffering both from an exacerbation of her psychosis
and a newly diagnosed gynecological malignancy. It was clear that she was in excruciating lower
abdominal pain as she pressed a plastic bottle of Head and Shoulders brand shampoo against
her pelvis, and shouted, This delivery thing is killing me. It is the head and shoulders that are
killing me. For this woman, her-primary process thinking both expressed and defended against
the painful truth of her cancer. The cause of the pain was wishfully condensed and displaced
from the present tumor to the past childbirth. And, it was an inessential feature of the shampoo
bottleits brand name, Head and Shouldersthat allowed an a-rationally based similarity
categorization between this item and the head of shoulders of one of her children at delivery.
Many of the hallmarks of primary process mentation are seen in this example: the absence of
ordinary rationality, condensation, displacement, and the type of feature-based categorizing by
resemblance, as well as substitution of part for whole. In addition, primary-process mentation
can utilize categorizations by contiguity in time and/or place. Dream elements provide convincing and obvious examples of the workings of the primary processes. They are ubiquitous in the
normal population, and accessible, demonstrating in their manifest contents, the effects of the
operation (in all combinations) of these many a-rational primary processes.

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An Analog to Primary Process: The Work of Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and
Others
Daniel Kahneman won the Noble prize in Economics for his work on biases and heuristics in
human judgment and decision making under uncertainty, much of this work done in collaboration with Amos Tversky (nobelprize.org, 2012). Kahneman and Tverskys body of work began
with the goal of testing utility theory (cf. Stiegler, 1950), which proposed that humans were rational actors in the marketplace, maximizing economic gain to themselves. Over time, it became
clear that actual human behavior in economic markets is often irrational, leading to an interest
in understanding why: Are the irrational workings of human cognition due to systematic biases
resulting from evolutionary adaptiveness, or are they so-called random errors, limits of the cognitive machinery? If irrational reasoning is systematic, is it motivated, and by what factors? In
attempting to investigate these questions, Stanovich and West (2000) proposed that there exist
two modes of thinking: System 1 and System 2.
System 1 is the term used in the dual-process literature to describe the mode of thinking that
makes judgments about what is happening in the environment quickly, automatically, and without
demanding conscious attention or effort. System 1 operates according to whatever associations
are activated; it ignores what it does not think of; it cannot assess the veridicality of what it
thinks, and is always active. This mode has been called WYSIATI for What you see is all there
is (Kahneman, 2011). System 1 operates constantly, automatically, and outside ones conscious
awareness. It is hypothesized that the evolutionary significance of System 1 is that it is a way
of monitoring the environment continuously without consuming precious mental resources of
deliberate concentration to all sensory input impinging upon the organism at all times.
System 2, by contrast, operates in a labor-intensive manner: It consumes attention, concentration, and time, but in the best of circumstances, it can operate logically and possibly even
use statistical reasoning (Kahneman, 2011). Attention and effort are required to maintain several
ideas in memory that may require separate action or need to be worked with according to some
rule. System 2 is proposed to be the executive process where rules predominate, complex comparisons are possible, or deliberate choices between options can be made. Switching between
tasks that require high cognitive demand is also effortful, especially when under time pressure.
System 2 thinking requires self-control as well, and people dont always have enough. For example, when people are working with a demanding cognitive task, and there is a temptation at the
same time, they are more likely to yield to the temptation, or to make selfish choices or use
sexist language or make superficial judgments in social situations, and so on. Similarly, some
mental states result in decreases in self-controlsuch as use of recreational drugs, alcohol, sleep
deprivation, or performance anxietyand under these conditions, System 1 gains the upper hand.
Investigation of these dual processing models has looked for performance gaps in human
cognition, identified the bias or heuristic that subjects used, and then reasoned backwards from
the data to fit them into a theory of its evolutionary significance. System 1 and System 2 are both
proposed to be essential to survival: one that is always active, and efficiently so, and one that can
muster advanced cognitive abilities, such as logic, doubt and self-reflection, to bring to bear on
complex environmental demands when necessary, but which depletes attention, concentration,
and energy. Thus, whatever System 2 can achieve with logic, it is System 1 that automatically
and continuously interfaces between the organisms desires/needs and environmental conditions,
and impels one toward ones actions.

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Sadly, despite the clear parallel to Freuds dual system conception, Kahneman (2011), and
many of the researchers he cited failed to credit the similarity to Freuds work, or to later
psychoanalytic theory. This, however, is not all that surprising, due to the long-standing biases
against psychoanalytic data in academia. Dual-process researchers have employed betweensubjects, cross-sectional, data samples, comparing an experimental condition of interest to a
control condition. Psychoanalysts tend to use case studies as prototypes for understanding certain types of patients difficulties. And yet, despite the extraordinary differences in how these two
traditions conceptualize data, it is encouraging that the descriptive findings from both theoretical
perspectives show a surprising degree of consistency, potentially enriching each line of inquiry.
To explore the intersections between these two disparate views related to human thinking, it also helps to explore an additional factor that has operated to keep these views apart.
Psychoanalysis and evolutionary psychology/biology are sciences that are divided by their focus
on proximate causese.g., why do all dreams have an element of wish fulfillment?versus
ultimate or evolutionary causese.g., why would evolutionary history have resulted in human
cognition becoming biased toward choosing 10 in 100 odds of winning over 1 in 10 odds when
the two are statistically equal? (Mayr, 1982). Within the dual process field, motivation is assumed
to derive from the goals of evolution, namely, survival, reproduction, and caring for offspring
to protect the reproduction of ones genes. Although Freud also wished to relate his theory
to the biological (evolutionary) underpinnings, psychoanalytic theory is more concerned with
the phenomenological (proximate) aspects of motivation, particularly identifying unconscious
wishes, defenses against awareness of those wishes, and how unconscious conflict shapes memory, perception, thinking, feelings, self-esteem, and behavior. Psychoanalytic theory also asks
the question of why related to why do humans have unconscious conflict, but here again, the
focus is about the relatively proximate history of a persons earliest years of life. Because of
these differences in perspective, the literature on cognitive biases has ignored each individuals
unique response to his/her drives, and has instead aimed to specify a set of universal unconscious,
systematic biases which continuously affect thinking, feeling and judgment.

EVALUATING THE EVIDENCE

1. What are the Parallels Between Findings in the Biases and Heuristics Domain and
Psychoanalytic Understanding of Primary Process?
Primary process continuously influences ones thinking. From a psychoanalytic viewpoint, primary process expresses instinctual urges as they relate to a persons current environmental
context and the matrix of wishes, emotions, memories, and meanings he or she has associated
with it.
System 1 proponents have also highlighted that this seat of a-rational thought influences peoples reasoning all the time. However, the significant role of emotion in System 1 was downplayed
until recently. But, as empirical evidence has accumulated about how System 1 operates it is clear
that, Emotion now looms much larger in our understanding of intuitive judgments and choices
than it did in the past. . . [because] System 1 is the secret author of many of the choices and judgments you make (Kahneman, 2011, p. 12). Thus, although System 1 was originally thought to
describe an automatic, unconscious, quick mechanism of cognition, it is clear now that System 1
cognition is emotion-based.

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System 1 assigns meaning based on associated memories and feelings, but what about System
2? System 2 is the slower, more deliberate mode of cognition, which effortfully decontextualizes
and depersonalizes problems, and uses rules and underlying principles to solve these problems.
Evolutionary psychologists propose that the tension between System 1 and System 2 stems from
the fact that System 2 is heavy on use of resources of time, attention, and concentration, and people are lazy. People would rather not activate System 2 unless they feel it is absolutely necessary.
In a sense, the evolutionary psychologists see the tension within each person about when to defer
to System 1 or to activate System 2 as functioning similar to the pleasure-unpleasure principle
(Freud, 1911)gratify System 1 pleasures when the risks are perceived to be low; activate the
unpleasure associated with the extra work of System 2 when risks are high. What dual process
researchers have not included in their formulations to date is how to account for the individuals
internally generated danger register, namely superego condemnation.
In psychoanalytic terms, this tension is most consistent with Charles Brenners (1982, 1994,
2002) conceptualization of compromise formation as a ubiquitous aspect of all mental operations.
In particular, the biases and heuristics experiments have demonstrated quite consistently that
when people believe they are thinking rationally, they are often responding to id-like internal cues
replete with primary-process modes of thinking, such as their immediate read on the situation,
their unique associations to environmental cues, and their current unique subjective experience.
In the remainder of this section, we detail some of the more specific experimental results
(summarized in Kahneman, 2011) that show that the effects of System 1 on human mentation are
quite consistent with Freuds proposal regarding the ubiquitous influence of the primary process
mode of thinking.
First, the core of System 1 is associative memory. A variety of experiments have demonstrated
that System 1 uses automatic, unconscious, and fast processes to make as much sense of a situation using a limited number of features of the stimulus: These features are that System 1 (a)
assumes causality, (b) looks for resemblance, and (c) connects by contiguity in time and place.
Why? Because System 1 functions to maintain and update a model of each persons individual
experiences, including that it represents what is normal within these experiences. Thus, the pattern of associations that link ideas of circumstances, events, actions, and outcomes that co-occur
comes to represent the structure of events in ones life, and then determines ones interpretation
of events and expectations of the future (Kahneman, 2011, p. 71).
Second, because of System 1s associative activation of memory, priming affects ones thinking without one being aware that one was primed. Words, images, or even gestures can act as
primes. Once primed, thought patterns because self-reinforced. For example, in a priming experiment, subjects were asked to walk at 30 steps per minute, which is slow. During this slow walking
episode, subjects were quicker to recognize words associated with old age, which then caused
them to walk even slower (that is, subjects tended to act old), which then reinforced thoughts
about old age. Priming experiments have confirmed Freudian insights about the role of symbols
and metaphors in unconscious associations (Kahneman, 2011). Furthermore, factors that lead
on to experience cognitive ease, such as a primed idea or a good mood, result in us believing
something is true without evoking System 2s thoughtfulness.
In psychoanalysis, analysts assume that this kind of priming when they assume that their
patients associations have transference meaning; that is, all of their comments are in relation to
their conscious and unconscious experience of the analyst in the moment. In some regard, the
analyst is a prime that affects the patients experience whether they recognize it or not.

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Third, making causal attributions is an automatic operation of System 1, and the validity of
human cause-and-effect beliefs may not be questioned by System 2. People tend to see things
in terms of intentional causality (Heider and Simmel, 1944); that is, people tend to believe that
events happen as they do based upon the intentions of self and others. For example, you experience picking up a salt shaker to salt your dinner as caused by your desire for salt on your food,
rather than as a chain of physical causation, having a wish, then a thought to move your arm
forward, to grasp the salt shaker with your hand, etc. (Kahneman, 2011). System 1 can only
apply causal beliefs, and acts quite certain of those beliefs. It cannot apply logic or statistical
reasoning, which might be the more appropriate route to a tenable understanding of a situation.
Then, because people believe they understand the past, that leads them to believe that the future
is knowable too.
The presumption of intentional causality shown of System 1 is similar to Freuds understanding of primary process thinking, where elements that are contiguous in time or space are assumed
to be linked in some causal relationship (Freud, 1900).
Fourth, System 1 may be answering a different question than was asked, and that you believe
you are answering. System 1 feels like intuition: It provides ideas quickly and what feels like
without effort. However, System 1 substitutes an easier question for a hard one and answers the
easy question, without noticing the substitution. WYSIATI (Kahneman, 2011) prevails because
system 1 cannot activate mental associations that were not activated. It takes System 2 to question
the quick solution of your intuition, because doubt is a System 2 function. Thus, the way people
answer questions is emotion driven, like the effect of id impulses on their ego functioning, when
System 1 is given the reins.
Fifth, the associative memory of System 1 leads to confirmation bias, without any awareness
of the bias. For instance, if you are asked Is Sam friendly? you look for instances of friendliness. If you are instead asked Is Sam unfriendly? you look for instances of that. This leads
to the halo effect where one instance is generalized by System 1 to have a simpler, more coherent view of someone: e.g. if you like someone, you are likely to estimate they are successful.
WYSIATI results in overconfidence, framing effects (different reaction depending on how the
data is presented, e.g., 90% survival rate, vs. 10% mortality rate), and base-rate neglect.
Sixth, base-rate neglect has been shown by a now famous experiment, known as the Linda
problem (Tversky & Kahneman, 1985). The Linda Problem is simple enough to describe here:
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student,
she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in
antinuclear demonstrations. Is it more likely that Linda is a bank teller, or a bank teller and feminist?

Because the description of Linda fits the stereotype of feminist, many people erroneously conclude that Linda is more likely a feminist and a bank teller than that she is a bank teller. In logic,
this is known as a conjunction fallacy, where the probability of a conjunction is believed to be
greater than the probability of one of the categories alone. Causal stereotypes trump base rate
information; a basic characteristic of System 1 is that it represents categories in terms of norms,
prototypes, and exemplars. People often fail to draw from base rate information when it conflicts
with one of their beliefs or biases.
Seventh, because System 1 represents categories by a prototype or set of exemplars, it performs intensity matching. Intensity matching is a simple way of comparing more or less. For
example, System 1 searches for the intensity of an experience, such as Was Sundays football

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game more or less exciting than dinner out with friends Friday night? and makes a direct comparison based on the intensity of the emotion. System 1 even goes so far as to match intensities
across different dimensions whether or not these crossovers make logical sense, e.g., if crimes
were colors, murder would be a darker shade of red than theft. System 1 responds to an affect
heuristic (Finucane, Alhakami, Slovic, & Johnson, 2000) where likes and dislikes determine a
persons beliefs about the world. Evaluation of plausibility and coherence of the story created by
System 1 from the data influences our assessment of its truth.
Eighth, Tversky, and Kahneman (1979) noticed that there was a direction to the biases associated with departures for economic utility theory. They found that people are generally more
adverse to taking risks when they are thinking of losses than when they are focused on the gains.
They called their theory of decision making under uncertainty Prospect Theory (Kahneman &
Tversky, 1979). They also found that the relationship is not linear, but in fact curvilinear. People
tend to be risk-averse both when they have a moderate chance of gains, but also when there is a
small chance of a big loss. Conversely, people tend to be risk-seeking when there is a moderate
probability of loss, and also when there is a small probability of a much larger gain. Kahneman
and Tversky called this emotional framing because losses evoke stronger negative emotions
than costs. This is consistent with the pleasure-unpleasure principle, a primary-process-driven
id mode.
Finally, there are two conclusions, which Kahneman (2011) noted in summarizing forty
years of research on dual process models, that provide particularly compelling support for
psychoanalytic models of internal conflict. First, the illusion of understanding means that humans
continuously engage in making sense of the world. They construct explanatory narratives that are
simple, concrete rather than abstract, assign a larger role to personal strengths, flaws, and intentions than to chance, and focus on a few striking events, rather than the countless possible events
that did not happen. Further, any recent salient event will possibly become the kernel of a causal
narrative. Second, the halo effect keeps explanatory narratives simple and coherent by exaggerating the consistency of evaluations. For example, people tend to believe that good things happen
to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. A compelling story fosters the illusion
of inevitability, and disregards probabilistic considerations. Just think of the story of Googles
success compared to all of the other web search engines that once were.
According to Kahneman, The main moral. . . is that our thoughts and our behavior are influenced, much more than we know or want, by the environment of the moment (2011, p. 128).
When one considers psychoanalytic models of the calamities of early childhood, before secondary process thinking becomes dominant, the dual process theory body of research would
support that the personal narratives constructed by young children (e.g., their understanding of
the Oedipal situation) would have these qualities of System 1: Explanatory narratives would be
simple, concrete rather than abstract, assign a larger role to personal strengths, flaws and intentions than to chance, and focus on a few striking events rather than the countless possible events
that did not happen. Furthermore, these narratives would be likely to be egocentric, based on
personal experience, and memory, all due to the evolutionary design of System 1.
We have been providing evidence of congruences and confluences between the psychoanalytic
understanding of primary and secondary process and the dual process theory literatures on
Systems 1 and 2. There is strong suggestive evidence that these two theoretical formulations of
dual processing are describing the same categories of mental phenomena. Furthermore, we can

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more confidently conclude that psychoanalytic models of primary and secondary process thinking
are consistent with evidence in support of the evolutionary significance of dual process thinking.

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2.

Do We See Evidence for Primary Process Mentation in Nonhuman Animals?

This question is important insofar as a negative answer suggests that the primary processes are a
human-only, relatively recent evolutionary development, whereas a positive answer lends weight
to the hypothesis that the primary processesseen as a (the?) predominant mode of mentation
in very young humans, as well as in adults during dream and symptom formations, in certain
sorts of creative productions, and in the quick (System 1) heuristics, both for better and worse,
described abovehave a longer and deeper evolutionary background.1
Note that the in asking this question, we are reversing the direction that investigation of animal
cognition/mentation usually takes. Most of the research in this area is devoted to whether, and to
what extent, animals are rational, i.e., Do they think like we do?2 rather than our concern here:
Do animals utilize a-rational mentation, and if so, to what extent do our primary processes map
onto their cognitive ways?
That said, the issue is often not clear-cut. Take, for example, the following claim from a
prominent experimentalist: In various animal species (including humans) associative abilities
may appear quite simple. . . but. . . in certain circumstances they perform quite well (Huber,
2009, p. 5). But what does this seemingly simple statement mean in terms of rationality versus arationality? The ambiguity reflects a tendency among some animal researchers and comparative
biologists and psychologists to regard any behavior that has an effective end (including selective
fitness success) as rational.
Arguing against this view, von Bayern and Emery (2009, p. 288) observed that, The well concerted actions within an ant colony or bee hive, or the foraging decisions of starlings, are clearly
not the outcome of reasoning and rational thought processes. (See also Brakel and Shevrin,
2003, p. 528 for a similar view.) Kacelnik (2006, p. 87), well aware of this problem, made explicit
important distinctions among the definitions of rationality used by philosophers/psychologists,
economists, and biologists, defining the biological concept or b-rationality as that in which
animals. . . behave as if they had been designed to surpass the fitness of their conspecifics.
To be clear, then, regarding our view, although we of course address behavior that is biologically efficacious and fitness based, we feel it is a category mistake to deem such behavior rational.
Instead, we consider something rational if it meets the minimal requirements of economic rationality (e-rationality), and that for philosophical and psychological rationality (pp-rationality).3 By
these criteria, according to Rosati and Stevens (2009, pp. 102103) for an agent to be operating
rationally one would expect that:

1 This is view is in accord with Nesse and Williams (1994, p. 25): Even when we cannot reconstruct the history of a
trait, we can still be confident that it was shaped by natural selection. This can be supported by evidence for its function
in other species.
2 For example two anthologies, both of which we find very useful, have the following titles: Rational Animals? and
Rational Animals, Irrational Humans.
3 These terms appear in the same article as b-rationality in Kacelnik (2006).

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1. Preferences should be transitive, with a consistency of ranking. So if agent X prefers A to

B, and B to C, Agent X should prefer A to C when given the choice between them.
2. Decisions should be made independent of extraneous alternatives. So if agent X prefers
A to B, and B to C, and C to Z, agent X should still choose A even when the choice is
among A, B, and Z.
3. Preferences and choices should demonstrate a degree of stability across contexts. The
same options should yield the same results independent of the framing and/or the timing
of their choices.
As should be clear from the section on the work of Kahneman, all three of these standards of
rationality are violated in the human cognitive biases of the fast-System 1. Or, to put it another
way, all three of these hallmarks of rationality are absent in those modes of human thinking that
are predominated by the a-rational primary processes. So to return to our question: Can we find
similar mental operations in non-human animals?
Rosati and Stevens (2009, p. 103) claimed that such a-rational choices are also common
across numerous animal taxa in the domains of (a) transitive choice, (b) background context, (c)
local context, (d) framing effects, and (e) temporal discounting. We now take each of these up
in turn:
a. Regarding transitivity, they cite a study of hoarding gray jays (Waite, 2001). Here the
experimenters demonstrated nontransitive trade-offs took place involving one, two, or
three raisins placed at short, intermediate, or long distances from the birds in a tube.
The jays preferred a single raisin at the short distance to two raisins at the intermediate
distance. They also preferred two raisins at the intermediate distance to three raisins at
the long distance. However, violating transitivity, they did not choose the single raisin at
the short distance over the three raisins at the long distance.
b. Rosati and Stevens (2009) next offer an example of non-e-rational (in other words, arational) behavior due to the background context altering responses. They report on
studies by Marsh, Schuck-Paim, and Kacelnik (2004) and Pompilio et al. (2006) in which
two different species, starlings and desert locusts, were each presented with two different equally rewarding food types but their initial presentation took place under radically
different conditions. Under one condition, the animals were food deprived before the presentation of food type A. Under the other condition the animals were well fed before the
presentation of food type B. (The food types were, of course, counterbalanced.) Then, in
the next phase of the experiment both foods were presented. Interestingly, no matter what
the nutritional status of the bird or locust in this second phase, both species preferred significantly the food type they had received in the food-deprived condition. An example of
state dependent learning, Rosati and Stevens (2009, pp. 104105) conclude that valuation can depend not only on the intrinsic qualities of the reward but also on the animals
own physiologic state upon encountering it.
c. Both the principle of independence of irrelevant alternatives and that of choice stability and regularity predict that adding an option to a choice set should not increase the
absolute preference for any of the previous options (Rosati and Stevens, 2009, p. 105).
And yet these authors continue the influence of local context on choice behavior has
been demonstrated in taxonomically diverse animal species. They cite several studies
(Bateson et al., 2002, 2003; Shafir et al., 2002) in which animals initially given two

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options varying on two dimensions (e.g., volume of food and sugar concentration) will
change their original preferences when later a third choice, intermediate between the first
two-on-one dimension and inferior to both on the other, is added. Thus hummingbirds,
honeybees, and gray jays increase their relative preference for the higher concentration
food after the third option is presented.
d. Framing effects are well known in humans. Two different sets of studies reviewed by
Rosati and Stevens (2009) show that animals, too, are affected by framing, particularly loss aversion. In studies by Chen, et al. (2006) two different experimenters offered
capuchin monkey subjects food rewards in two different ways. One experimenter (A)
showed the monkeys one piece of food and gave them one. The other experimenter (B)
showed them two food rewards and gave them one. Although the amount of the ultimate reward was the same, the animals preferred Experimenter A. Similarly, in another
condition, the capuchins preferred the experimenter who showed one food reward and
then gave either one or two, to the experimenter who showed two food rewards and then
gave either one or two, even though the reward schedules were identical. These experiments demonstrate an animal version of loss aversion, as do studies done by Marsh and
Kacelnik (2002) on starlings. The birds in the first part of the experiment were shown
either a very high number of pieces of food (seven) or very low (one). In the next part
of the experiment, the birds could chose between definitely getting four food pieces or
an equal chance to get either two or six pieces of food. The birds who had initially been
shown seven pieces were in the loss condition, and like their human counterparts chose
the risky option, demonstrating a framing effect.
e. Rosati and Stevens (2009) asserted that many species (including humans) exhibit temporal discountingnamely taking the immediate reward now (and in some species, here)
even though it is evident that a better reward could be obtained later (and in some species,
there). The primary process aspect of such impulsive behavior is obvious and, indeed,
impulse control is regarded as an important explanatory factor in much of this behavior.
(See, for example, Ainslie, 1974; Green et al., 1981.) A wonderful example of impulsive temporal discounting comes from an experiment with chimps reported in the journal
Science. (The work was done by Sarah Boysen at Ohio State University as reported by
Fishman, 1993; and I had much to say about it in a prior work, Brakel, 2009, p. 121) from
which I now quote:
Chimps were trained until each had the ability to recognize the plastic Arabic numerals, 1 through
10, and to associate these numerals with the number of items indicated. This ability, which included
the understanding of more vs. fewer items, was demonstrated as follows. There was an initial training
on numerals and their associated number amounts. One chimp then had several runs in which she
was given a choice of two plastic numerals, e.g. a 4 and an 8with one of the numerals to
represent the number of gumdrops she would get, and the other to represent the number of food
bits for her partner, another chimp. One numeral was always higher than the other. The selecting
chimp picked the higher plastic numeral first (e.g. 8), got rewarded with eight gumdrops, and then
watched her partner chimp get the four gumdrops represented by the remaining plastic 4. Next,
a new and more complicated condition was introduced for the chimp pairs. Reporting on a typical
pair, Sarah the selecting chimp and Sheba her partner, the experimenters now gave Sheba, the partner
chimp, the number of gumdrops matching the numeral Sarah, the selecting chimp, chose first. Thus

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when Sarah choose the plastic 7, Sheba got seven gumdrops and Sarah herself was left with the
plastic 3 and three gumdrops. After a number of such trials Sarah had no trouble picking the lower
valued plastic numeral first, thereby reserving for herself the higher numeral and the larger number of
gumdrops represented. From the experimenters view (really from any view) the learning experiment
was a great success. But a control condition is of interest for our purposes. When, instead of the
plastic numerals, the experimenters used two piles with differing numbers of gumdropse.g., four
gumdrops vs. eight gumdropsSarah, the chimp flawlessly making the plastic numeral selections
so as to increase her own gumdrop reward, could not learn to forestall choosing the pile with more
gumdrops first. Presumably an easier task in that no association of numeral with number is required,
Sarah could not help but choose the pile with the greater number of gumdrops first, even after seeing
that again and again Sheba rather than Sarah got the big gumdrop pay off. It seems Sarah could
not stop the desire for more food from interfering with aspects of her reality-testing capacities. She
could not separate her secondary process mediated belief-proper that she would get the bigger pile if
and only if she first pointed to the smaller pile, from her primary process desire for as much of the
obviously available food now! Her desire was intensified by the increased visibility of the gumdrops,
which seemed to signal an immediate availability that proved irresistible.

Thus, we have an answer to question one: Do we see primary process a-rationality in

nonhuman animals?4 The answer is a resounding Yes! And this leads us directly to the next set
of questions: Can a-rational primary process mentation be advantageous and is it evolutionarily
adaptive? Rosati and Stevens (2009, p. 113) hold that because the so-called cognitive biases are
anything but unique to humans they are likely to have deep evolutionary roots, further remarking that many instances of context-dependent choice probably result from adaptive benefits.
But then, there is a further question both for us and Rosati and Stevens (2009, pp. 113114):
Though adaptive explanations may [italics added] account for context dependence in nonhumans, do [they, and do] these explanations apply to human decision making? Both of these
questions comprise our next question, to which we turn forthwith.
3. Is There Evidence for the Adaptiveness of Primary Process Mentation in
Nonhuman Animals?
Before addressing this question outright, it is useful to note that some researchers believe that
many of the clearly adaptive and seemingly rational behaviors (of the e-rational or pp-rational
type) that are ascribed to nonhuman animals are actually best explained as examples associative
learning; thereby less complicated and less energy demanding. For example, although Blaisdell
et al. (2006) demonstrated in a very convincing experiment that rats are capable of causal reasoning, Penn and Povinelli (2009, p. 31) presented work by Dwyer et.al (2009) that proposed an
alternative, purely associative account of the rats behavior. Even human processes thought to
require rationalityfor example, explicit learning about expected but absent cuescan often be
better understood on the basis of an associative model. Workers in this area, Castro, Wasserman,
4 Note that along with the instances listed in (a) through (e), primary process/a-rational categorizations can also be
demonstrated in animals. In a preliminary study pitting attributional similarity (where the features of two items match)
the index of primary process versus relational similarity (where the features of two items are different but the relations
among the features the same)the index of secondary process; Garlick, Gant, Brakel, and Blaisdell (2011) found that
pigeons based their performance on a match to sample categorization task on attributional properties but not on relational
properties.

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and Matute (2009, p. 96) claimed that in many such tasks, Often people do not have the
time or resources to perform elaborate computations or ratiocinations; then a speedy associative
mechanism can provide a satisfactory output.
Turning now to more obvious examples to investigate whether or not primary process associative a-rational mentation can be advantageous and adaptive, let us begin with two classic
biological findings. Each of these involves a highly adaptive behavior that is predicated upon a
single primary process type feature association rather than rational secondary process mentation.
The first is the Garcia Effect, in which there is a rapid acquisition of aversive responses to
neutral (or even pleasant) stimuli when they have become associated with toxins. In the classic
experiment Garcia et al. (1955) allowed rats to drink a saccharin and water solution (a positive
stimulus, preferred over plain water) as they were being exposed to gamma radiation (an aversive
stimulus likely causing gastric upset). Two different dosage exposures were used. A group of
control rats were treated identically in terms of the radiation apparatus but received no radiation.
Subsequently, the irradiated rats avoided the saccharin solution now preferring plain water, unlike
the control rats. Moreover, as noted by Garcia et al. (1955, p. 158), The conditioning appears to
be dose-dependent in terms of the strength of the saccharin aversion and in the persistence of this
aversion. The adaptive importance of such conditioning is obvious.
The next equally classic finding concerns imprinting. With ducks as his subjects, and based on
the single feature of visually perceived movement, Lorenz (1935) demonstrated that new hatchlings follow the first moving item they perceive, regarding this entity thereafter as mother. The
classic experiment/observation involved Lorenz arranging it so that the he himself was the first
moving object seen by a group of newly hatched ducklings. Now one might question the adaptability of this, especially as it is irreversiblei.e., to that group of ducks, Lorenz was forevermore
their mother, displacing their biological mother. However, it seems absolutely clear that in the
great majority of cases new hatchlings will see their mother as the first moving object, and if
in rare instances she has been hurt or killed, they will see some other conspecific, potentially
capable of maternal care.
Another issue of interest regarding the possible adaptiveness of a-rational mentation concerns
work on the actual advantages of cognitive biases like the ones described by Kahneman. For
example, in certain circumstances failure of transitivity makes good sense. Suppose that ordinarily a forager would forgo an intermediate amount of food at an intermediate distance for a much
greater amount at a much greater distance. We can notate this as A (big food/big distance) > B
(intermediate food/intermediate distance). Now suppose further that the forager prefers the intermediate amount of food at the middle distance, B, to a small amount of food very close by, C.
Thus B > C. So by the principle of transitivity one should expect the forager to prefer the large
amount of food at a great (or even an intermediate distance) to the small amount of food very
nearbythus, A or B > C. And yet under certain circumstances that is not the case. Suppose the
forager is very food deprived, to the point of near starvation. Choice C, expending less energy for
immediate energy return seems like a better and more efficacious choice as a gain of [only] two
food units has different influence on fitness depending on the state of the individualit generates
a larger increase in fitness at low states (Rosati and Stevens, 2006, p. 111). We conclude that
state-dependence can influence transitivity.
Further thinking along this line can provide an adaptive explanation for another of
Kahnemans cognitive biases, loss aversion. It is not hard to imagine that the nearly starved
forager might well take a risky option; another conspecific, or even the same individual, would

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avoid the risk if in a condition of nutritional sufficiency. In fact, it seems more adaptive for the
food deprived individual to take the risk in order to quickly improve the dangerously low caloric
status. (See Caraco et.al., 1980.)
Relatedly, context sensitivity or context-dependent responses can also prove the more adaptive strategies, despite making what can seem to be System 1 cognitive mistakes. For example,
foragers who have had past experiences with features associatively similar to the ones at test may
adjust their response rate accordingly, while seeming to make the cognitive bias error of changing a response preference due to an added irrelevant, not-preferred option. (See Schuck-Paim
and Kacelnik, 2007.) This is an adaptive strategy because, according to Adam and Freidin (2009,
p. 128), Associative learning models are usually designed to account for the attribution of value
to originally neutral stimuli that act as predictors of biologically important events (e.g., food,
painful stimuli, etc.).
Before we leave the topic of the advantages and possible adaptiveness of a-rational primary
process associative mentation, we must consider something of great importancethe very operation of conditioning itself, an extraordinarily robust and adaptive learning mechanism present in
very simple animals (e.g., in sea slugs and possibly amoebas5 ) as well as in humans. Papineau and
Hayes (2006, p. 190) provided a basic definition of classical conditioning: Classical conditioning allows animals to take one stimulus, F, as a sign of another, G, whenever Fs have previously
been followed by Gs in the animals environment. Note that the very taking of F for G on the
basis of Fs having been followed by Gs can be characterized as one of the signature primary process operationscontiguity in time. There are further connections between primary process and
conditioning. Quoting now from a previous work (Brakel, 2010, p. 143) I note the dependence of
conditioning on condensation and displacement:
Let us [now]. . . take up conditioning and the primary process mechanisms of condensation and
displacement. In classical Pavlovian conditioning the unconditioned response, e.g., salivating when
food is present, is conditioned to take place when there is a bell sound but no food, at which point the
salivating is a conditioned response. The creation of such a conditioned response can occur only after
a number of trials when food follows immediately after the bell sound, i.e., the bell sound and the
food following it are paired. One can appreciate then that first there is a condensationresponses to
the contiguous bell plus food; and then a displacementresponses to the bell alone; the bell standing
for food coming.

Last, regarding primary process and conditioning, consider stimulus generalization. Here not
only will Fs be a sign of Gs, but so will entities similar to F. In Pavlovs classic experiment, for
example, dogs conditioned to salivate to a certain bell soundhere the sound is F, signifying that
G, the food, will appear soonwill also salivate to other stimuli (stimuli similar to F); namely
similar sounds, anything shaped like a bell even if no sound is emitted, and even extraneous
physical items coincidentally accompanying the bell. This sort of similarity generalization is
based on the primary process operations of feature-based categorizations and contiguity in place.

5 See

Fernando et al. (2009) for a discussion of the possibility of conditioning in single celled organisms.

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4. Are There Maladaptive Aspects for Primary Process Mentation?

Most psychoanalytic writings characterize the primary processes as predominantly maladaptive
given their clear link to impulsivity, regression, symptom formation, etc. This characterization
holds for much of the work on System 1 heuristics too, where cognitive biases, errors and mistakes are stressed. And although we have made a case for a robust adaptive side of the primary
processesthereby promoting selective fitness; there are maladaptive aspects that inevitably
come along too. These maladaptations can be seen both with respect to the way that they allow
symptom generalizability, based on associative connections; and the intractability of many symptoms owing to their primary process origin and hence their insensitivity to evidence. Further,
the very formation of psychopathological symptoms has much to do with emotion-laden conflicts, triggering primary process displacements and condensations, toward compromises that
often deny parts of reality. Psychological symptoms are thereby usually extremely costly, both
psychologically and materially.
The many benefits of primary process for selective fitness that weve discussed are not outweighed by the maladapative consequences, although these last are in evidence much of the time
for some psychologically troubled people, and at least at some time for just about every person. Indeed, this sort of plus/minus outcome for System1/primary process mentation, and for
dual processes of thinking too, is exactly what is expected and predicted by standard models of
evolutionary explanation. We can see it in a number of other plus/minus traits: Humans big
brains and upright postures were (and are) selectively advantageous, but the downsides are evident tooback problems, difficult deliveries, neuropathology when head size is too big, etc.
How can we summarize this understanding? Traits that promote selective fitness most often
have costscertainly at the level of the individual and maybe across species. But should that
be surprising? In evolution, as in life, one rarely gets something for nothing.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

In this article, we have evaluated evidence for a common basis between dual process models of
cognition from the evolutionary psychology domain and Freuds model of primary and secondary
process. We discovered that there are a number of parallels, worthy of appreciation in both fields.
We identified evidence that suggests that dual process theories of cognition are generally similar
to Freuds conception of primary and secondary process.
Next, we looked to other types of research to further explore evidence for an evolutionary basis
to primary process mentation. We found that there is supporting evidence for primary process in
non-human animals. We also discussed studies that argue that primary process operations are
evolutionarily adaptive.
Finally, we discussed how to understand the maladaptive consequences of primary process
operations, because psychoanalysis as a treatment is directed toward helping people overcome
emotional difficulties that implicate primary process operations.
We hope to have made our case as plausible as possible. However, we must now admit that we
have made a few assumptions to arrive at our formulations, and make them transparent. First, we
have assumed that primary-process mentation and secondary-process mentation respectively map

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rather well onto the various System 1 and System 2 thought processes discussed by contemporary
cognitive scientists studying so called dual processes. In the examples we discussed, this appears
to be a reasonable assumption, but we did not focus on identifying the boundaries between these
two conceptions of thinking.
Relatedly, we have considered associative operations of quite diverse naturefrom those
driving conditioned responses and generalizations, to those underlying symptom and dream formation, to those employed in metaphoras primary process operations. Following the previous
work of one of us (see, especially, Brakel, 2002, 2009, 2010; Brakel and Shevrin, 2003) we have
taken for granted that a-rational processes are properly described as neither rational nor irrational.
Without these assumptions in place, important aspects of our arguments do not cohere.
Another set of assumptions concern the linear nature of an evolutionary history. It is quite
possible that various nonhuman animals have primary-process operations that have evolved quite
separately from humanitys. Indeed, similar operations can evolve multiple times, with divergent
evolutionary histories and resultant processes that may be convergent, or may just seem so. This
may especially be the case if the similar processes serve different functional roles in different
species.
Finally, we have made assumptions about what constitutes adaptiveness and adaptations on the
one hand, and maladaptiveness and maladaptations on the other. Although we, as analysts, have
a pretty good idea about how pernicious and tenacious primary-process-based symptoms can
behow maladaptive they indeed are; we can only guess at how severely disadvantaged human
beings without the a-rational drive-organized, desire-driven passions of the primary processes
would be. It is the case that we assume that the primary processes are adaptive by imagining such
Spock-like hyperrational peopleyes, they would be without anxieties, phobias, and general
neuroses, but they would also lack spark, sparkle, poetry, and especially dreams, in both literally
and figuratively. In the words of this issues editor, Melvin Bornstein, What is the value of the
primary process? It allows us to appreciate the non-linearity of life (M. Bornstein, personal
communication, 2013).
How does this knowledge of the foundational natureindeed, evolutionary natureof primary process help each of us work in our consulting room? Here is a small vignette with one
of our patients that we hope to be illustrative. Ms. Q, a seemingly nice person, has an exacting,
demanding, narcissistic streak. When she feels let down by someone, she retaliates in a hidden
sadistic manner. Recently, she asked her analyst to schedule one session 15 minutes early, to
accommodate her work schedule. The analyst agreed, while at the time not realizing that she was
doing so to avoid the patients anger. On the day in question, however, the analyst had forgotten
the change. She realized, nearly too late, and as she rushed to the office, she became aware of
two feelings. One, her own anger toward the subtly sadistic Ms. Q, and two, disappointment in
herself for recognizing her anger at Ms. Q only after causing inconvenience to herself. When
the analyst arrived for the session, the patient described how she felt irrationally let down by her
analysts rushing entry. Ms. Q felt that her analyst had preferred not to be meeting early. Then
Ms. Q reported that she felt just as she had the day before at work, when her boss abandoned her
for the afternoon.
Several primary process/System 1 processes are evident in this clinical example: (a) The analyst, for a time, repressed the 15-minute adjustment because it was inconvenient for her! Primary
process/System 1 operations find the shortest route to self-satisfaction. (b) The patient made

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primary process connection between the rushing analyst and the disappointing boss. This transference was fueled by a single primary-process element, namely neither the boss nor the analyst
held Ms. Q as centrally important. (c) Both patient and analyst had primary process mediated
feelings that allowed them to gain secondary-process deeper understanding of themselves and
each other. The analysts unconscious perception of these thematic transference elements allowed
for an enriched understanding of the press of dangers and wishes within the analytic situation.
The accumulated data from the bias and heuristics literature on dual process models has something unique to offer to psychoanalysis. When we are well acquainted with the specific biases
humans are prone to make, we can better monitor our own automatic tendencies toward biases
like framing effects, priming effects, looking for confirmation of our preconceived theories about
our patients, etc. We want to be mindful of these biases, because it is likely that our biases will
serve as unconscious primes or frames for our patients, which would likely affect their behavior
with us based on unconscious, primary process associations.
The two modes of registering and reacting to the environmentprimary process, fast unconscious processing (capacities that we likely share with various non-human animal species) and
secondary process capacity for critical reasoning skillsare tools handed to people by evolution
as resources to foster survival and reproduction. Psychoanalytic tools enable one to reconcile and
make sense of these disconnects between ones head and one hearts so that one has the choice to
live in a more personally meaningful way with less unnecessary suffering.

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Susan E. Cutler, Ph.D.

555 E. William, Suite 21-E
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
secutler@umich.edu
Linda A. W. Brakel, M.D.
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brakel@umich.edu