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The investigation aims to clarify to what extent non-conscious thought has efficacy in e.g. decision making and also examine some aspects of the question whether decisions are caused by free will. This will be conducted through an analysis of new research pertaining to neuroscience, economics, the combination of the two within neuroeconomics; evolutionary theory and especially the new theory of Unconscious thought (Nordgren & Dijksterhuis 2006) which will enjoy special scrutiny due to its recentness in the scientific field. A decision strategy ought to put high-level conscious cognition to use where it's most effective and this is on a different level than the canonized one. Meta decision making is decision making pertaining to which decisions ought to be made consciously. It is the area where the largest amount of freedom can be obtained wherein the largest amount of thought effort ought to be invested. There also seems to be no basis to assume that non-conscious decisions or for that matter emotively based decisions would be less "rational" than conscious ones. The strategy is also analyzed via happiness research to examine how to make decisions render happiness rather than other values. The result stresses that one ought not to use economic or other measures in decision making, rather trust one's visceral intuitions to a larger extent since those are representations of one's wishes. Empirical results established a connection between, decision making, creativity and problem solving pertaining to the evidence showing that also the latter benefits from unconscious thought rather than conscious thought. This new evidence ought to change our view of problem solving at large. Rather than it being a purely conscious process one would reach better results in relying to a larger extent also to non-conscious processes.

Med hjälp av tidigare forskning från västvärlden om lycka och kunskapen om vad tre guineaner finner värdefullt i vardagen kommer resonemang föras om vilka komponenter som kan vara viktigast i sökandet efter tillfredsställelse och lycka. Syftet är att identifiera dessa aspekter och tillföra något till den tidigare forskningen och att synliggöra hur de tre guineanernas syn på lycka kan vidga vårt (svenskarnas) perspektiv lycka. En kritisk jämförelse kommer göras mellan den tidigare forskningen och tolkningar av intervjuerna. För att undersöka området bör några frågeställningar besvaras: Vad prioriteras i vardagen, värdesätts som viktigast, för de tre intervjuadeguineanerna? Hur är deras syn på lycka och tillfredsställelse? Vilka komponenter tycks för de intervjuade vara de viktigaste för eftersträvan avtillfredsställelse? Hur kan detta sättas i relation till västvärldens tidigare forskning och få en ny mening?