What is the Pink Elephant Test?

What happens immediately if you’re instructed not to think about a pink elephant? Are you surprised that a pink elephant pops up in your thoughts? That was a test to demonstrate the incessant struggle of subduing your thoughts. This thought experiment is known as the Pink Elephant test. It is a cultural adaptation to the White Bear test, tracing back to the 1980s. Before diving into this intriguing phenomenon, let’s explore where it originated.

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Psychological Principles Behind The Test

Daniel Wegner, an American social psychologist, studied the ironic processes of mental control by asking participants to refrain from thinking about a white bear. Even when explicitly told to avoid thoughts of the white bear, the participants reported that they couldn’t stop thinking about it. He proposed the following theory:

Ironic Process Theory 

The pink elephant test establishes the psychological principle of ironic process theory (IPT), also called the pink elephant paradox or white bear phenomenon. IPT proposes that avoiding a thought or feeling can bring it out with more frequency and intensity.

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Key Concepts of IPT

1. Process: There are two processes involved in mental control, according to Daniel Wegner:

• Monitoring Process: When we try to avoid a thought, our mind automatically scans for the unsolicited thought to ensure that it doesn’t enter our stream of consciousness. For example, it checks for thoughts like “Am I thinking about a pink elephant?” Ironically, this unconscious monitoring process brings attention to the exact thoughts you’re trying to avoid.
• Operating Process: When our mind makes a deliberate attempt to distract us by replacing the unsolicited thought with some other thought, it is known as the operating or control process. For example, our mind actively conjures up thoughts of an orange cat instead of a pink elephant.

2. The Ironic Effect: The ironic effect occurs as the monitoring process unconsciously retains the unsolicited thought active in the background of our mind. 

• The operating process requires mental resources and when it gets affected by fatigue, stress or cognitive overload, it becomes more challenging to suppress the unwanted thoughts.

• The Ironic Process Theory (by Wegner) offers an outline to gain a better understanding of why subduing your thoughts can be futile. Acceptance and management of thoughts can yield a better result. IPT can have important applications in the mental health field and in Artificial Intelligence systems. 

Real-world examples of the Pink Elephant Test

• Sleep disturbances: When we try hard not to think about insomnia, it can worsen our sleeplessness.

• Nutrition: When we avoid thinking about particular food items, we are more likely to crave them more. 
• Anxiety and stress management: When we don’t want to think about the triggers of our stress or anxiety, they occur more persistently.

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Relevance to OCD

• It is related to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) because it explains how suppression of thoughts can make them more prominent. Intrusive thoughts, being the main feature of OCD are known to be challenging to subdue. Attempting to do so can lead to a cycle of recurrence and aggravate anxiety and stress.
• When someone with OCD tries to suppress these thoughts, it has a similar effect to that of the ‘pink elephant’ test. The more they try to avoid the thought, the more vivid and prominent it becomes.
• This can be distressing to individuals with OCD and to reduce these feelings, they would engage in repetitive or compulsive behaviours like repeatedly washing their hands, constantly checking for imperfections, etc. 
• These efforts to counterbalance obsessive thoughts can only offer momentary relief and reinforce the obsessive and compulsive cycle. The solution is to change the relationship with the thought, and not eliminate or avoid it.

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Relation with CPTSD

The ‘pink elephant’ phenomenon can help us understand Complex PTSD (CPTSD) as it can exhibit how we can’t avoid intrusive thoughts, painful memories, and emotional flashbacks. People having CPTSD usually make efforts to suppress triggers, memories or feelings that are associated with their past trauma. This can backfire and similar to the ‘pink elephant’ effect, bring those feelings or memories to the surface of the mind in a recurring cycle.

People with CPTSD are observed to be hypervigilant about danger while shunning reminders of past trauma. This constant vigilance (similar to the monitoring process in IPT) tends to keep the traumatic memories active in the background of the mind and prolongs the anguish associated with the trauma. The solution lies in processing and integrating the past trauma to reduce its grip on the present. This might take a long time but with therapy and other supportive strategies, it is possible to reduce the intensity of CPTSD.

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Association with Repression 

The ‘pink elephant’ metaphor is relevant in understanding the psychological defence mechanism known as repression, which is not the same as conscious suppression of thoughts. Repression is more of an unconscious coping mechanism. To protect us from overwhelming emotions, caused by distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings, these thoughts or feelings get pushed out of the cognizant part of our mind. This process of coping is called repression.

In the ‘pink elephant’ concept, thoughts are suppressed to deliberately avoid thinking about them, but the process of repression happens without conscious efforts. The thoughts we repress can often indirectly or involuntarily influence our emotions and in turn behaviour. The repressed thoughts or feelings may manifest unpredictably in the form of emotional patterns, intrusive thoughts, dreams, or psychosomatic symptoms.

Just like thought suppression in the ‘pink elephant’ theory, repression doesn’t reduce distress but merely buries it temporarily, like pushing something under a rug. The solution would be to address and process the buried memories, emotions and thoughts, with a compassionate approach. This can lead to emotional resilience and better-coping mechanisms.

Connection with Aphantasia

People with the condition known as Aphantasia can resist involuntary mental images or visualizations. They have a unique ability of being able to control their thoughts. So if they are instructed to not think of a pink elephant, their minds don’t trigger a mental image of the pink elephant because they don’t have the visualization that other people typically have. On the other hand, people with strong visualization capabilities would find it difficult to resist the ‘pink elephant’ test. Non-visual thinkers or people who frequently think abstractly or verbally would be more focused on the description or the idea of the pink elephant rather than its visualization.

Read More: Understanding Unwanted, Repetitive and Distressing Thoughts and Compulsions

Link with Neuroticism 

It can give us valuable insight into neuroticism, which is a personality trait connected with intense emotional reactivity. As Neuroticism tends to be a volatile trait, people having it will find it tough to manage intrusive or uninhibited thoughts. 

Individuals with a heightened level of neuroticism would struggle to resist the pink elephant test as they are more likely to ruminate on distressing or undesirable thoughts. For example, “Why can’t I stop thinking about the pink elephant?” For those high in neuroticism, the monitoring process (based on IPT) is often overactive. This can have a high rebound effect and cause their thoughts to be even more intrusive.

When someone with high levels of neuroticism, fails to suppress their thoughts, they might become more self-critical of themselves. Neuroticism can be driven towards positive endeavours with self-awareness and emotional regulation. For example: An individual with a higher level of neuroticism might be more accustomed to understanding potential risks and this could help them to plan better. They can also channel their ruminating tendencies to find creative solutions.

Did you know?

An award-winning stop-frame animation short film called “Don’t Think of a Pink Elephant” showcases the story of a teen girl Layla who combats against her compulsive and intrusive urges. The central theme of the film is the challenges she endures while facing her potential to cause harm and how she faces her darkest fears. Here’s the video link for the short film: https://vimeo.com/429895816

Applications of the Pink Elephant Test

It can be a valuable tool for helping individuals in therapy and counselling:

1. It can be aligned with therapy approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to demonstrate how trying to ignore negative feelings or beliefs can reinforce them. The main CBT principles involved are Cognitive awareness and Cognitive restructuring. Using CBT in tandem with the pink elephant test can:
   • Help to manage intrusive thoughts.
   • Challenge Cognitive distortions.
   • Improve regulation of emotions.
   • Reduce tendencies of rumination or overthinking.
2. It can also be used during Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The purpose of ACT is to: 
   • Understand how thought suppression affects an individual.
   • Practice noticing thoughts without any judgment.
   • Decrease the emotional intensity of intrusive thoughts.  

Read More: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Conclusion

The pink elephant test functions as an influential metaphor to learn more about thought suppression and its inadvertent effects. With Ironic Process Theory (IPT) at its root, the pink elephant test becomes a paradox when we try to avoid a thought, it leads to the amplification of the same thought that we want to ignore. The test also emphasizes that acceptance of thoughts, without judgment is more effective than suppression.