Psychological inertia means that people have a tendency to nonconsciously repeat their behaviors or thoughts, which underlies their habits and mental world. Psychological inertia in childhood involves repetitive practice, repetitive games, self-stimulus behaviors of normal children, and stereotyped behaviors of abnormal children. Although psychological inertia has been investigated with normal youths, adults and agedness, these studies are not investigated deeply and systemically. As is known, the phenomenon of inertia proposed by Newton exists everywhere in the physical world. It is an inherent character that all objects tend to maintain the original state of uniform linear motion or static state. Is there any general similar phenomenon such as physical inertia in our psychological world? Based on daily observation, psychological inertia seems to exist in some domain of nonconscious decision making. However, whether psychological inertia exists generally was uncertain because the absence of evidences, especially the evidence from the nonconscious decision making domain. Therefore, the present studies are designed to investigate whether there is inertia in our psychological world. It will contribute to integrate the related researches, and further help us understand the features of psychological phenomena and ourselves.There are two purposes in the current study. (1) To investigate whether there is inertia in our nonconscious decision making. If so, then to characterize this kind of inertia and find out relevant factors which may contribute to it. (2) To define the nature of psychological inertia, which will considered as a benchmark to integrate all the psychological phenomena with inertia. With these purposes in mind, three systemic observations are conducted, followed by 5 rigidly controlled experiements, which constitute the two parts of this thesis.Part one includes three systemic natural observations, in order to ensure whether the phenomenon of inertia would be found in nonconscious seat-choosing, which would be investigated in study 1,2 and 3. Study 1 aims to investigate whether there is inertia in nonconscious seat-choosing of familiar people. The purpose of study 2 is to examine whether there is inertia in nonconscious seat-choosing of unfamiliar people. And study 3 is carried out to check whether there is inertia in nonconscious personal seat-choosing. The participants of study 2 and study 3 are also questioned with some items with inertia in daily life. As expected, the inertia in nonconscious seat-choosing was confirmed in these three studies, which is natural, repetitive, general and with significant individual differences.Part two consists of five systemic experiments to investigate whether there is inertia in nonconscious key-choosing. Study 4 was used to explore whether there is inertia in nonconscious key-choosing. Study 5 was operated to research the developmental characteristics of nonconscious key-choosing. Study 6 was longitudinal study, which was designed to probe the variation of nonconscious key-choosing after one month. The aim of study 7 is to monitor the variation of nonconscious key-choosing under the condition of forced interruption. Study 8 was manipulated to demonstrate whether there is inertia in nonconscious key-choosing or not, under the condition of handedness control. The conclusions were drawn that psychological inertia exists in nonconscious key-choosing, which also shows natural, repetitive, general and individual characteristics.To sum up, the following findings can be arrived among the aforementioned studies.Firstly, there is inertia in nonconscious decision making, which can be reflected in three aspects. (1) There is inertia both in group and individual nonconscious seat-choosing, both for males and females; (2) The psychological inertia exists in the nonconscious key-choosing, for all the subjects in all the experimental conditions in current research, from kindergarteners, pupils, youngsters to college students, under conditions of forced interruption, handedness control, partition a month, etc.; (3) The psychological inertia also exists in daily activities, such as the choices of location in washing closet.Secondly, the psychological inertia in nonconscious decision making is natural, repetitive, general and with individual differences. Specifically:(1) The inertia of nonconscious seat-choosing and key-choosing presents the tendency of high repetitive single choice, under the conditions of freedom and several options; (2) High consistency exists in the participants'choices between the 7 or 10 choices in nonconscious seating-choosing or the choices in nonconscious key-choosing partition a month; (3) The inertia of nonconscious seat-choosing and key-choosing shows a catholicity across communities, tasks and scenarios;(4) The inertia of nonconscious seat-choosing and key-choosing shows individual difference in the repetitive degree and the repetitive types.With the founding of the present study and the review of the related researches, the psychology inertia of psychological world could be confirmed. And we also found the characteristics of nature, repetition, catholicity and individual difference underlying the phenomenon of psychology inertia. The repeated behaviors and thoughts could occure unconsciously just because of psychological inertia. Therefore, it could be full used to cultivate positive behaviors and thoughts. For adults, ones subjective positive strength can help the direction and the degree of his or her psychological development in two aspects. One aspect is that to set up ones ideal and stage-goals. The other more important aspect is to avoid negative behaviors, to establish positive environment and stimulus ones positive behaviors. It is still three advices to cultivate children's positive behaviors and thoughts:(1) Children's repetitive behaviors should be understood deeply, their harmless actions should not be interrupted, and provide the support for them; (2) We should do our best to make children exposed to positive information in their early life; (3) Stir up children's positive words and deeds continuously.
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