What is the difference between automatic and controlled thinking?

[helen :}]

According to Aronson, Wilson, & Akert (2007), social cognition can be defined as how individuals process social information and apply it to social situations. There are two types of social cognitions, automatic thinking and controlled thinking. Automatic thinking is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless thoughts. It is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary and effortless because whenever we encounter a situation that we have experienced before, we would not need to analyze the situation as if it was our first time. Controlled thinking is different from automatic thinking in terms that controlled thinking is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful. In a way, controlled thinking is used when we first encounter a situation we have never experienced and after getting used to the situation, automatic thinking takes over. To understand how controlled and automatic thinking work together; imagine that an individual moves to a new town or city, that individual would not know how to get to the local restaurants, markets, stores, etc. So the individual will need to look at a map to get directions on how to get to the local restaurants, markets, etc. This is where controlled thinking is used; the individual looks up directions on how to get to his or her destination. Then after a while, the individual will become accustomed to the area that he or she does not need to think about how to get to his or her destination and that is how automatic thinking takes over.

Stolen off Wikipedia, which you could have done yourself. But I could have figured this out before I googled it, isn't it obvious? Automatic thinking is like that little voice in the back of your head that pipes up without you forcing your brain to actually think those words - if you pay attention to what's going on inside your head you can actually have a conversation between your automatic and controlled voice. Controlled thinking is where you actually make your brain think certain words or picture images, it takes effort and thought.
I don't do sociology or psychology and I knew that. But I think about things way too much.