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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
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A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface.
Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2007) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.114.4.843 · Cited by 1,470
“Specifically, people often have limited introspective access to the causes of their thoughts and behavior ( Nisbett & Wilson, 1977 ).”
BackgroundGaze and eye contact: a research review
Kleinke, C. L. (1986) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.100.1.78 · Cited by 1,455
Incentive-sensitization and addiction
Robinson, T. E., & Berridge, K. C. (2001) · Addiction · doi:10.1046/j.1360-0443.2001.9611038.x · Cited by 1,435
Shafir, E. (1993) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/0010-0277(93)90034-s · Cited by 1,453
“As has been amply documented (e.g., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977), subjects are sometimes unaware of the precise factors that determine their choices, and generate spurious explanations when asked to account for their decisions.”
Media Framing of a Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance
Nelson, T. E., Clawson, R. A., & Oxley, Z. M. (1997) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.2307/2952075 · Cited by 1,422
Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions.
Wilson, T. D., & Schooler, J. W. (1991) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.60.2.181 · Cited by 1,417
Self-citationOrganizational routines are stored as procedural memory: Evidence from a laboratory study
Cohen, M. D., & Bacdayan, P. (1994) · Organization Science · doi:10.1287/orsc.5.4.554 · Cited by 1,393
Champions of Technological Innovation
Howell, J. M., & Higgins, C. A. (1990) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.2307/2393393 · Cited by 1,410
Venkatesh, V., & Brown, S. A. (2001) · MIS Quarterly · doi:10.2307/3250959 · Cited by 1,440
Barrett, L. F., Mesquita, B., Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2007) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085709 · Cited by 1,425
Kihlstrom, J. F. (1987) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.3629249 · Cited by 1,405
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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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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