The Introspection Illusion

CHAPTER ONE The Introspection Illusion Emily Pronin Contents 1. Introduction 2 1.1. Self and other 3 1.2. Components of the illusion 4 2. Identifying the Illusion: The Case of Bias 6 2.1. Introspective weighting 7 2.2. Self–other asymmetry 9 2.3. Behavioral disregard 10 2.4. Differential valuation 12 3. The Introspection Illusion in Social Psychology 15 3.1. Judgment and decision making 15 3.2. The self 16 3.3. Attitudes and attitude change 18 3.4. Social influence 20 3.5. Interpersonal interaction 21 3.6. Personal relationships 23 3.7. Stereotyping and prejudice 25 4. Implications for Major Theoretical Concerns 26 4.1. The perspectives of actors and observers 26 4.2. Self enhancement 31 4.3. Psychological distance 36 4.4. Free will 41 5. Roots of the Illusion 44 5.1. Development 44 5.2. Culture 45 5.3. The brain 47 5.4. Further thoughts: Projection and perspective taking 48 6. Applications 49 6.1. Conflict 49 6.2. Persistence of racism, sexism, and inequality 50 6.3. Ethical lapses 51 Department of Psychology and Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 41 # 2009 Elsevier Inc. ISSN 0065-2601, DOI: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)00401-2 All rights reserved. 1 2 Emily Pronin 6.4. Introspective education 52 6.5. Pursuits of self-knowledge and social connection 53 7. Conclusion 55 Acknowledgments 55 References 55 Abstract Introspection involves looking inward into conscious thoughts, feelings, motives, and intentions. Modern social psychological research has raised ques- tions about the value and reliability of information gained via introspection. This chapter concerns people’s heavy weighting of introspective information for making self-assessments. It also concerns a few principles associated with that weighting—that is, that it does not extend to how people treat others’ introspections, that it can lead people to disregard information conveyed by their own (but not others’) behavior, and that it is rooted not only in people’s unique access to their introspections but also in the unique value they place on them. Over-valuing of personal introspections occurs in a variety of domains, including judgment and decision making, personal relationships, and stereotyping and prejudice. An understanding of it sheds light on theoretical concerns involving the actor–observer bias, self-enhancement, temporal distance effects, and the perception of free will. People’s unique valuing of their introspections likely has deep roots, but this ‘‘introspection illusion’’ also causes problems. It can foster conflict, discrimination, lapses in ethics, and barriers to self- knowledge and social intimacy. Understanding its sources and effects may help alleviate some of those problems. 1. Introduction ‘‘I think therefore I am.’’ In 1637, the most well-known line in the history of modern philosophy was written. Descartes’ claim derived from a basic intuition: If there was one thing in which he could be confident, it was the reality of his own thoughts. Indeed, the capacity for conscious introspection is fundamental to human experience and is commonly thought to differentiate humans from other animals. Through introspection, people constantly are aware of the various thoughts, feelings, and motives that reside in their conscious minds. However, important advances in cognitive and social psychology have questioned the degree to which introspection can uncover the sources of our judgments and actions. People, it has been shown, can form impressions of others, pursue goals, adopt attitudes, and regulate their emotions—all without awareness, effort, or intent (e.g., Hassin et al., 2005; Wegner & Bargh, 1998). People’s introspective access to their conscious intentions, emotions, prescient thoughts, and salient attitudes all can mislead them in The Introspection Illusion 3 their efforts at self-understanding (respectively, Epley & Dunning, 2000; Gilbert et al., 1998; Pronin et al., 2006b; Wilson et al., 1993). In short, introspection often is not a valid and reliable method for assessing the self. Nevertheless, people show a persistent and widespread tendency to place heavy weight on introspection when seeking self-understanding. I refer to this tendency as an introspection illusion. The ‘‘introspection’’ part refers to information gained by looking inward, however briefly, to thoughts, feelings, motives, intentions, and other mental contents. The ‘‘illusion’’ part refers to some mistaken notions that people have about introspective information and its value. Given the sometimes weak value of introspection, why do people place so much value on the information they obtain from it? In a classic study, college students watched a video interview with a university instructor who had an unfamiliar foreign accent. In one version of the video, his responses were warm and likable; in the other, they were cold and unlikable. Students who saw the warm and likable version later rated the instructor’s accent as more pleasant than did those who saw the other version. However, they were unaware that his likability influenced how they perceived his accent and even confidently claimed that the reverse had occurred—that his accent made them like (or dislike) him. This experiment by Nisbett and Wilson (1977a) demonstrates something more than the unreliability of introspection. It also suggests people’s false confidence in its reliability. One reason for that confidence likely involves the wealth of introspective information available to people. When individuals are inundated with information about their thoughts, feelings, and intentions, they may naturally come to view those introspections as an authentic source of self-knowledge (Wilson, 2002). Another important reason for people’s confidence in their introspections likely involves the felt directness of introspective information. William James described people’s experience of their thoughts as having ‘‘a warmth and intimacy about them of which [others’] are completely devoid’’ ( James, 1890, p. 314). This fact may lead people to value their own introspections more than those of other people because, of course, people cannot experience others’ thoughts and feelings with the same directness, warmth, and intimacy. Even when one is privileged enough to have access to others’ introspections, such as when those others share their thoughts about a particular judgment, that access is of an indirect sort. Consequently, one may value it less (e.g., ‘‘I know you think his cold personality didn’t affect your perception of him, but I have to weigh that against how harsh you were about his accent.’’). 1.1. Self and other In the case of others, what individuals seem to experience more directly than introspective information is extrospective information—that is, information gained by looking outward to behavior rather than inward to thoughts 4 Emily Pronin and feelings (Pronin, 2008a). People generally cannot directly perceive their own appearance and actions, and this distinction in visual attention has been shown to influence the attributions people make (Storms, 1973; Taylor & Fiske, 1975). Given the confidence people place in information that arrives at them ‘‘directly’’ (Ross & Ward, 1996), it seems that people may not only differentially attend to introspective versus extrospective information about themselves versus others, but they also may differentially value those sources of information when considering themselves versus others. In proposing such an asymmetry, this theorizing offers a new chapter to social psychology’s unfinished story about the divergent perspectives of actors and observers. Even unfinished, that story has earned the status of a classic—owing in large part to a set of theoretical accounts proposed nearly 40 years ago by Jones and Nisbett (1972) and Bem (1972), with further elaboration by Nisbett and Wilson (1977b). These sometimes seemingly contradictory accounts differ both in the emphasis they place on introspective awareness and in the introspective material they consider. Jones and Nisbett generally were interested in circumstances in which actors have ‘‘more, and more precise’’ introspective information about their internal states than do observers (p. 85). In that context, they theorized about actors’ inclination to form different causal explanations from observers. Bem and also Nisbett and Wilson were interested in circumstances in which actors lack privileged introspective access to mental process. In that context, they emphasized actors’ tendency to rely on the same information and to reach the same conclusions as observers. The current theorizing speaks to circumstances in which actors have rich access to introspective information, such as when introspection provides actors with convincing evidence of their good intentions. Importantly, though, it also speaks to circumstances in which actors lack introspective access, such as when introspection fails to reveal to actors the influence of bias on their own judgments because that bias operates automatically and does not leave conscious traces. In both cases, the introspection illusion involves actors’ placing too much weight on introspection. In the former case, actors place that weight on whatever information is present in introspection (e.g., on their good intentions); in the latter case, they place it on the absence of information in introspection (e.g., on their absence of feeling a motive to be biased). In both cases, people

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