Nisbett Summary
NNotes from Nisbett, “Telling more than we can know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes”
Main Points: Evidence shows 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, they do not do so based on any true introspection. Their reports are based on a priori, implicit casual theories or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. Although the evidence points that people are unable to use introspection in respect to cognitive processes, they may sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and plausible causes of the responses they produce.
Notes: * Social psychologists routinely ask subjects in their experiments why they behaved as they did (i.e., why did you choose that graduate school) * Mandler, Miller and Neisser proposed that people may have no direct access to higher order mental processes, such as used in evaluating judgment, problem solving and behavior * Problems with new anti-introspectivist view: (1) Mandler, Miller and Neisser never stated that people have no direct access to higher order mental processes. Instead, the speculation is not based on research on higher order processes, such as “thinking,” but rather research on more basic processes of perception and memory. There is no conscious awareness of perceptual and memorial processes. (2) People readily answer questions about the reasons for his behavior or evaluations. Subjects usually appear stumped when asked about perceptual or memorial processes, but are quite able to describe why they behaved in such a manner or
Main Points: Evidence shows 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, they do not do so based on any true introspection. Their reports are based on a priori, implicit casual theories or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. Although the evidence points that people are unable to use introspection in respect to cognitive processes, they may sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and plausible causes of the responses they produce.
Notes: * Social psychologists routinely ask subjects in their experiments why they behaved as they did (i.e., why did you choose that graduate school) * Mandler, Miller and Neisser proposed that people may have no direct access to higher order mental processes, such as used in evaluating judgment, problem solving and behavior * Problems with new anti-introspectivist view: (1) Mandler, Miller and Neisser never stated that people have no direct access to higher order mental processes. Instead, the speculation is not based on research on higher order processes, such as “thinking,” but rather research on more basic processes of perception and memory. There is no conscious awareness of perceptual and memorial processes. (2) People readily answer questions about the reasons for his behavior or evaluations. Subjects usually appear stumped when asked about perceptual or memorial processes, but are quite able to describe why they behaved in such a manner or