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A question that has long fascinated psychologists is this. Why does what people think and say often bear little relation to what they do? Following on from this, one might ask why individuals are convinced that what they think and say is accurate.
I call this the Thinking Trap. A misguided view of what we do and why we do it. The fact that what we say is no guide to our real selves. What we do is a much better barometer of who we really are. The disassociation between what we say and do operates in almost all aspects of our existence - from what we perceive to how we behave as social animals. I give some classic examples of this below.
In 1977, Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson created a storm in the psychological literature in a seminal article published in Psychological Review. They showed that people’s self reports about the decisions they make, and the insights they think they have about them, are false. This has been referred to as the introspection illusion. We like to think we know ourselves and how we do things, but our confidence is misplaced. Instead – and because we like to think of ourselves as sensible and rational human beings - we make up stories to ourselves and others about what we think is going on. We draw on all sorts of a priori information and our own implicit theories to explain our own decisions. But these explanations are nothing to do with any ability to accurately introspect. We tell ourselves and others stories. They are not real.
Nisbett and Wilson were researching a small set of mental processes that have limited relevance for the rich inner life we feel we lead. Before them, many psychologists, counselors, psychotherapists and psychiatrists – most notably Sigmund Freud believed verbal reports could be used to tap into the black box of the human psyche and the unconscious reasons for behavior. Basically our thoughts are unconnected with our actions and – as Nisbett and Wilson showed – we make up our own reasons for connecting one thing with another. Because humans share a great deal in common despite the differences, we often understand and agree with these reasons. But when we hear a line of reasoning that makes no sense to us we react. We might disagree, ignore, or get closer to those whose reasons sound more like ours. We might even change our mind then and there, or over time cognitive dissonance has its secret way with us.
This disassociation between our private thoughts and the reality to which they refer has massive implications. For example, it would suggest that what is needed in any situation, what is best for us, what is morally correct, what something means etc. cannot be accurately inferred from what we think and say, however earnest and honest we are.
We only seem to ‘know’ the ‘what and why’ of things because we accidentally hit upon the correct explanation, not because we have any real insight in causes.
The fact that people do not consciously know what affects their decisions and behavior is true at every level in psychology from perception to group behavior, and for most methods and techniques used in the discipline. Some classic examples include:
- Our senses can deceive us, as they often do without us knowing. This is obviously true for illusions where the inherent properties of the array have inbuilt contradictions our senses cannot easily interpret properly. The disassociation is shown in a more extreme way for some odd neurological conditions such as in Anton’s syndrome – when people think they can see when they are completely blind, or the opposite effect – blindsight – when people report not being able to see (due to brain damage) but can perform as if they can.
- In decision making, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Khaneman has outlined the many factors that are hidden from us that prevent conscious rational choices. Professor Karen Pine has also applied some of these issues to managing and making decisions with money in her book Sheconomics. Peter Johansson has also shown that people are even blind to their own choices and preferences, although they think they are fully aware of them. In our last book, Flex-Using the Other 9/10ths of Your Personality, we suggested that these contradictions are because people are not ‘coherent’ on all the different levels of human experience (from our biological self to our social experience). People can want something that is incompatible with what they need, or that causes them to reflect in ways they wish they did not, for example.
- Memory is a constructive process, not a literal record of the past. This makes it very prone to biases and self-deception. However we are not aware of how these biases affect what we recall. Many of our memories are inaccurate and misrepresent actual events despite our beliefin their accuracy. The pioneering research of Elizabeth Loftus has shown that it is relatively easy to implant false memories in us that could not have actually happened. But we think they did.
- Governments, public health organisations, and corporates are only too well aware that people do not do what they should or want to. This disassociation is at the core of many social and health problems. At a personal level, most of us will have had personal projects that we have wanted to complete but failed repeatedly at (to quit an addiction, get rid of a phobia, lose weight, improve a relationship, etc.)
- The current political problems and uncertainties in our own countries and around the world – and the atrocities being carried out in the name of right or justice –highlight the extent of the incoherences and prejudices people blindly live with.
- People have much in common, but the differences between them are greater than we imagine. Almost every psychological effect that has ever been investigated is influenced more by these differences than by the power of the variable under investigation. The differences between people are greater than the effects of most manipulations or interventions. These differences are rarely reflected in what people think or say but are revealed in their behaviours.
People believe their inner thoughts are veridical, of course. They have a vested interest in believing that what they think and say allows them to interpret the world and make the changes they need - to guide them about what to do and how to do it. This is a false belief in many important respects. Indeed, failure to understand the limits of thinking is at the core of failures in many governmental, corporate and individual interventions.
So just how useful are conscious thoughts?
Their function is generally limited to giving people a sense of self-identity. Despite the illusion that our thoughts give us agency and power, they actually arise as by-products of our circumstances and our actions – they are not often the cause of them. We are little more than a bunch of conditioned reflexes labouring under the illusion that we are superior controllers. We do have inner lives, apparently, but to change the way we behave requires interventions that influence our non-conscious self. The will - at least for most people most of the time – is little more than a self-delusional consciousness. At best, we have only a small degree of control over our public self.
To my mind, we are much more biased than we are rational. And I include scientists in this too. Even the best will be biased in what they look for, find and report. They erroneously believe that the rigours of science eliminate bias. It does not, as I have suggested previously. For example, using large data sets of random numbers, Professor Dorothy Bishop from Oxford University has shown that complex statistical analysis – of the types that are increasingly used when trying to understand common measures of brain activity - can reveal what appear to be meaningful effects when in fact none can exist. This suggests that complex cognitive and behavioural systems are less open to scientific investigation than many experts and non-experts think.
The implications of the Thinking Trap are considerable and include:
- We should be very careful when taking any notice of what people say in any context. The chance of this being true is relatively small.
- We are likely to think that much education, training and development are useful when they are not.
- Governments and official agencies should not shape public policy according to what people say.
- People will have illusions of competence (or incompetence). Sometimes these will be damaging and sometimes dangerous.
- Any evidence is unlikely to be free from bias.
- When faced with clearly contradictory evidence people are likely to reshape their biases, not reject them.
- It is unlikely that health information and education will be effective to get people to change their lifestyle for the better (as discussed in my previous blogs and in a paper I published last year1)
- What we do has much greater importance than what we think. And to change thoughts, changing a related behavior will have much more power than putting effort into thinking differently.
Every one of us is caught in the Thinking Trap. And the harder we try to get out, the firmer its grip. We can minimize the problems associated with the Thinking Trap if we are always aware that it is operating on us. Instead of staying with the thoughts, why not give what you do a chance to define your self-concept?
1. PINE, K. P. & FLETCHER B. (C) Shifting brain channels to change health behaviour, Perspectives in Public Health, 2014, 134, 1, 16-17
DOI: 10.1177/1757913913514705
