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Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions.
Abstract
In Study 1, college students' preferences for different brands of strawberry jams were compared with experts' ratings of the jams. Students who analyzed why they felt the way they did agreed less with the experts than students who did not. In Study 2, college students' preferences for college courses were compared with expert opinion. Some students were asked to analyze reasons; others were asked to evaluate all attributes of all courses. Both kinds of introspection caused people to make choices that, compared with control subjects', corresponded less with expert opinion. Analyzing reasons can focus people's attention on nonoptimal criteria, causing them to base their subsequent choices on these criteria. Evaluating multiple attributes can moderate people's judgments, causing them to discriminate less between the different alternatives.
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“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 Wilson and Schooler, 1991
In the citing paper
“Indeed, bringing introspective attention to pleasure feelings may actually dissipate those hedonic feelings: less introspective attention can mean more emotion, as well as more accuracy about the underlying emotional reaction, in some cases (Wilson and Schooler, 1991; Dijksterhuis et al., 2006; Schooler and Mauss, 2010; Torre and Lieberman, 2018).”
From Evolving Concepts of Emotion and Motivation (2018) · cites this paper as Wilson and Schooler, 1991
In the citing paper
“In humans too, as already mentioned talking about emotions may cognitively distort underlying processes based on what people think their emotions should be, rather than accurately report emotional content (Wilson and Schooler, 1991; Dijksterhuis et al., 2006; Schooler and Mauss, 2010).”
From Evolving Concepts of Emotion and Motivation (2018) · cites this paper as Wilson and Schooler, 1991
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Metadata
- Authors
- Wilson, T. D., & Schooler, J. W.
- Affiliations
- University of Virginia (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 1991
- Volume
- 60
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 181-192
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W2117268595
- Cited by
- 1,417
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 44 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 55 · 2014: 55 · 2013: 65 · 2012: 64
- FWCI
- 27.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01mh041841-10)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH41841)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Behavior and Marketing Influence
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- self-reflection, decision quality, choice accuracy, expert opinion, brand preference, course preferences, attribute evaluation, attentional focus
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Choice Behavior, Decision Making, Humans, Internal-External Control, Problem Solving, Taste, Thinking
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