Thinking too Much or too Little? The Effects of Introspection on the Decision-Making Process
Wilson and Schooler presented evidence that introspection can diminish the quality of decisions. With some modifications of their procedure, the authors reexamined the mechanisms underlying this effect. Students reported intentions to take college courses based on course descriptions. Participants who reflected on their decision processes showed decreased amounts of processing, suggesting that introspection limited their ability to systematically process information. In contrast, control participants appeared to use heuristic and systematic processing interdependently. Introspection participants generally discriminated less than did control participants between important versus unimportant information. Moreover, introspection participants indicated that they did not weight the information as they should have, countering the possibility that they adapted their strategies to better meet decision context demands. The mechanisms through which introspection affects decision quality are discussed.