All animals can predict the hedonic consequences of events they've experienced before. But
humans can predict the hedonic consequences of events they've never experienced by …

The authors define mental contamination as the process whereby a person has an
unwanted response because of mental processing that is unconscious or uncontrollable …

Because of personal motives and the architecture of the mind, it may be difficult for people to
know themselves. People often attempt to block out unwanted thoughts and feelings through …

Reviews evidence which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to
higher order cognitive processes. Ss are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a …

People are generally unaware of the operation of the system of cognitive mechanisms that
ameliorate their experience of negative affect (the psychological immune system), and thus …

When an attitude changes from A₁ to A₂, what happens to A₁? Most theories assume, at
least implicitly, that the new attitude replaces the former one. The authors argue that a new …

Foreseeing the future is one of the most appealing of all psychic powers. Who has not
dreamed of making millions by predicting which new offering on Wall Street will be the next …

“Know thyself,” a precept as old as Socrates, is still good advice. But is introspection the best
path to self-knowledge? Wilson makes the case for better ways of discovering our …

Staged 2 different videotaped interviews with the same individual—a college instructor who
spoke English with a European accent. In one of the interviews the instructor was warm and …

People base many decisions on affective forecasts, predictions about their emotional
reactions to future events. They often display an impact bias, overestimating the intensity …

Abstract In Study 1, 49 college students' preferences for different brands of strawberry jams
were compared with experts' ratings of the jams. Students who analyzed why they felt the …

100 Part Two/Methodological Perspectives blessing is that it keeps us from rejoicing-over
potentially meaningless data like those described above. Moreover, as you shall see over …

The durability bias, the tendency to overpredict the duration of affective reactions to future
events, may be due in part to focalism, whereby people focus too much on the event in …

This study tested the prediction that introspecting about the reasons for one's preferences
would reduce satisfaction with a consumer choice. Subjects evaluated two types of posters …

In previous anchoring studies people were asked to consider an anchor as a possible
answer to the target question or were given informative anchors. The authors predicted that …

In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a
room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external …

The authors hypothesized that uncertainty following a positive event prolongs the pleasure it
causes and that people are generally unaware of this effect of uncertainty. In 3 experimental …

We propose a model of affective adaptation, the processes whereby affective responses
weaken after one or more exposures to emotional events. Drawing on previous research …

Publisher Summary The chapter presents evidence consistent with the observations of
Roethke and Vargas Llosa that introspection can be disruptive. The focus is on one type of …