The DOI matches its Crossref record; 66 of the 67 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.
Abstract
Evidence is reviewed which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Subjects are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes.
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In the citing paper
“they can also often be unfaithful accounts of individuals' cognitive processes (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977).”
From Language Models Don't Always Say What They Think: Unfaithful Explanations in Chain-of-Thought Prompting (2023) · cites this paper as Nisbett and Wilson, 1977
In the citing paper
“One often is not aware of why one loves, hates, likes, or dislikes (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977; Wilson, 2002).”
From Impulsive action: emotional impulses and their control (2014) · cites this paper as Nisbett and Wilson, 1977
In the citing paper
“In addition, adolescent samples may be likely to underreport mental health symptoms [48,49]”
From Feasibility and effectiveness of a web-based positive psychology program for youth mental health: Randomized controlled trial (2014) · cites this paper as [49]
In the citing paper
“the extent to which people have introspective access to psychological processes has been disputed”
From Unawareness of Attitudes, Their Environmental Causes, and Their Behavioral Effects (2025) · cites this paper as Nisbett & Wilson 1977
In the citing paper
“It is also important to emphasize that many of these top-down influences occur automatically and without awareness (Kunda, 1990; Nickerson, 1998; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Wilson & Brekke, 1994).”
From Biased and biasing: the hidden bias cascade and bias snowball effects (2025) · cites this paper as Nisbett & Wilson, 1977
In the citing paper
“they may be unable to infer cognitive processes such as EF (Nisbett and Wilson 1977)”
From Executive Function Deficits in Daily Life Prospectively Predict Increases in Depressive Symptoms (2014) · cites this paper as Nisbett and Wilson 1977
In the citing paper
“They may, nonetheless, prefer TRI due to social convention (i.e. they use it because others seem to use it [57] or because they are accustomed to relying on it [58]).”
From Digital Identity: The effect of trust and reputation information on user judgement in the Sharing Economy (2018) · cites this paper as [57]
In the citing paper
“Considerable experimental evidence indicates that some features of human emotion and motivation cannot actually be accessed well via introspection or described in subjective reports (Nisbett and Wilson, 1978; Wilson and Schooler, 1991; Schwarz, 1999; Dijksterhuis et al., 2006; Schooler and Mauss, 2010; Greenwald and Banaji, 2017; Torre and Lieberman, 2018).”
From Evolving Concepts of Emotion and Motivation (2018) · cites this paper as Nisbett and Wilson, 1978
In the citing paper
“The perceived transparency of human decision-making stems from a belief that introspection provides direct access into the psychological processes by which people make decisions 17 .”
From Understanding, explaining, and utilizing medical artificial intelligence (2021) · cites this paper as [17]
In the citing paper
“Because selfreports can diverge from underlying cognitive processes (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977), these analyses are interpreted as complementary indicators of monitoring correspondence rather than proof of a unitary metacognitive-dependence construct.”
From College students' metacognitive awareness of generative-AI reliance: an experimental study of decision confidence and attribution bias (2026) · cites this paper as Nisbett and Wilson, 1977
Citations
Cites
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Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1975) · Utility, Probability, and Human Decision Making · doi:10.1007/978-94-010-1834-0_8 · Cited by 22,650
Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9 · Cited by 9,984 · cited 2×
“The tools that people employ when asked to make judgments about causality are analogous to the "representativeness heuristic" described by Tversky and Kahneman (1973, 1974; Kahneman & Tversky, 1973).”
MethodPersonal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy
Reid, L. A., & Polanyi, M. (1959) · British Journal of Educational Studies · doi:10.2307/3119338 · Cited by 7,880
Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure
Zajonc, R. B. (1968) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0025848 · Cited by 6,745
Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state.
Schachter, S., & Singer, J. (1962) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/h0046234 · Cited by 6,223
On the psychology of prediction.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/h0034747 · Cited by 6,202
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The Intuitive Psychologist And His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process
Ross, L. (1977) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60357-3 · Cited by 4,170
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Sources of method bias in social science research and recommendations on how to control it
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2012) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100452 · Cited by 15,744
“One obvious way to do this is to make sure that you don’t ask respondents to “tell more than they Wilson 1977).”
Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of Empirical and Theoretical Research
(1988) · Advances in Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0166-4115(08)62386-9 · Cited by 15,003
The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60214-2 · Cited by 8,822
Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness in Dynamic Systems
Endsley, M. R. (1995) · Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society · doi:10.1518/001872095779049543 · Cited by 8,875
Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences.
Zajonc, R. B. (1980) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.35.2.151 · Cited by 8,094
Metadata
- Authors
- Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D.
- ORCID
- Wilson, Timothy D.
- Venue
- Psychological Review
- Published
- 1977-05
- Volume
- 84
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 231-259
- ISSN
- 0033-295X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1471
- OpenAlex
- W2164558494
- Cited by
- 11,317
- References
- 67
- Citations by year
- 2026: 297 · 2025: 273 · 2024: 198 · 2023: 373 · 2022: 260 · 2021: 346 · 2020: 432 · 2019: 492 · 2018: 345 · 2017: 335 · 2016: 334 · 2015: 360 · 2014: 333 · 2013: 323 · 2012: 362
- FWCI
- 129.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Cognitive Science and Education Research
- Keywords
- self-reflection, introspective access, causal judgment, salience, higher-order cognition
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