Consciousness: In your own words

Surprisingly little is known about how the general public understands consciousness, yet information on common intuitions is crucial to discussions and theories of consciousness. We asked 202 members of the general public, “In your own words, what is consciousness?” and analyzed the frequencies with which different perspectives on consciousness were represented. Almost all people (89%) described consciousness as fundamentally receptive – possessing, knowing, perceiving, being aware, or experiencing. In contrast, the perspective that consciousness is agentic (actively making decisions, driving output, or controlling behavior) appeared in only 33% of responses. Consciousness as a social phenomenon was represented by 24% of people. Consciousness as being awake or alert was mentioned by 19%. Consciousness as mystical, transcending the physical world, was mentioned by only 10%. Consciousness in relation to memory was mentioned by 6%. Consciousness as an inner voice or inner being – the homunculus view – was represented by 5%. Finally, only three people (1.5%) mentioned a specific, scholarly theory about consciousness, suggesting that we successfully sampled the opinions of the general public rather than capturing an academic construct. We found little difference between men and women, young and old, or US and non-US participants, except for one possible generation shift. Young, non-US participants were more likely to associate consciousness with moral decision-making. These findings show a snapshot of the public understanding of consciousness – a network of associated concepts, represented at varying strengths, such that some are more likely to emerge when people are asked an open-ended question about it.