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 autho rs reexamined the mechanisms underlying this effect. Students reported inte ntions to take college courses based on course descriptions. Participants w ho reflected on their decision processes showed decreased amounts of proces sing, suggesting that introspection limited their ability to systematically process information. In contrast, control participants appeared to use heu ristic and systematic processing interdependently. Introspection participan ts generally discriminated less than did control participants between impor tant versus unimportant information. Moreover, introspection participants i ndicated that they did not weight the information as they should have, coun tering the possibility that they adapted their strategies to better meet de cision context demands. The mechanisms through which introspection affects decision quality are discussed.