Timothy Wilson
Social psychologist at the University of Virginia, co-author of the 1977 review on verbal reports, and of later work on self-knowledge and why people are poor predictors of their own reactions.
Who they are
Wilson's career has largely been about the limits of self-knowledge, which makes him the continuing half of the 1977 partnership.
That paper's lasting contribution is less the pessimism than the specification. By saying when reports will be accurate, salient and plausible stimuli, and when they will not, it turned a claim about human opacity into a rule a researcher can apply when choosing an instrument.
Key papers
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). "Telling more than we can know: verbal reports on mental processes." Psychological Review, 84(3), 231-259. Second author.
Key ideas
Self-knowledge has a shape rather than simply being absent. See Introspection Illusion.
Measure behaviour under manipulation rather than asking for causes, which is what the studies this publication relies on actually do. See The Self-Report Problem.
Sources
- Nisbett & Wilson (1977), doi:10.1037/0033-295x.84.3.231.