Thinking too much: introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions
Timothy Wilson and Jonathan Schooler report two studies. Students who analysed why they felt as they did about brands of strawberry jam agreed less with experts' ratings than students who did not. In a study of college course choice, both analysing reasons and evaluating every attribute of every course led to choices that corresponded less with expert opinion. The authors propose that analysing reasons focuses attention on non-optimal criteria.
Timothy Wilson and Jonathan Schooler report two studies. Students who analysed why they felt as they did about brands of strawberry jam agreed less with experts' ratings than students who did not. In a study of college course choice, both analysing reasons and evaluating every attribute of every course led to choices that corresponded less with expert opinion. The authors propose that analysing reasons focuses attention on non-optimal criteria.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-11.
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Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
doi:10.1037/0022-3514.60.2.181. Abstract read 2026-10-11: students who analysed reasons agreed less with experts' ratings of jams; reasons analysis and rating all attributes both reduced correspondence with expert opinion in course choice. Sample sizes not printed because the full text was not read.