Telling more than we can know


A paper that has greatly influenced my thinking; read at your own risk

The paper telling more than we can know, written by Richard Nisbett and Timothy deCamp Wilson in 1977, deals with the question: when we introspect to find the reason for our beliefs or preferences or behaviors, just what are we doing? The "received" or naive view is that we are going into our memory or some other corner of our mind, and finding the right box (or calling the right bird to our hand), and reading out the contents; and the verbalization of these contents represents a fair, honest assessment of our real reasons and motivations. TMTWCK demolishes this view and puts in its place something that warms my cynical, robotic heart. Instead of introspection, the authors suggest, our ability is more accurately termed "creating an a priori causal theory" or making a "plausibility judgment". In other words, let's say someone asks you if you enjoyed last night's party, and you say yes; you are asked why you enjoyed it, and you avert your eyes and think for a second, perhaps while interjecting a "well..", and then you give the answer that the music was great, there were lots of interesting people there and you're going to meet a particular one of those people for a date in the coming days. Nisbett and Wilson report evidence from many studies that cast a humbling light on your answer. Instead of answering "why did I like the party?", they claim, what you have done is answered a different question, namely "why do people like parties?", in a way that does not obviously contradict your experience (you would not give this answer had you been turned down for the date). Of course, 30 years after this paper, many of us still give credence to polls that ask people why they prefer a particular political candidate, or chose their profession, or what brand of music player they enjoy, &c., but the wise student of humanity will benefit from taking a naturalistic stance toward these answers..

(Permanent Reference to the paper)

Posted: Wed - February 21, 2007 at 12:16 AM | | | |

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