Analyzing Verbal Reports on Mental Processes - Essay Example

Analyzing Verbal Reports on Mental Processes Do we have direct access to our higher order mental processes? Are we in control of all our mental processes and their manifestations? Can we adequately analyze and explain the way we think? Can we alter our mental processes to accommodate or adjust to our intended behaviors? Can we explain whey we think the way we do and why we act the way we do? If you ask these questions pointblank to any person, a person responding from the top of his or her head will immediately say “yes”. Just by getting the main points of the questions without a deeper analysis of the context of the questions, a person may easily reply to them. Come to think of it, you are your own person and nobody knows you the way you do. So, naturally the response to any question pertaining to the control of your mind would be a definitive one. Individuals believe that their own person should be the best source of all the information about their being. An outsider or another person cannot possibly know all the private information stored in the mind of another person and cannot accurately predict the modes of action, the intentions and the outward manifestations of behavior. An individual, by virtue of his or her complete access to private thoughts and though patterns, solely has the absolute control of these information. If this is the case, then individuals should be accurate in verbally reporting the mental processes they use per situation. Is this true for all individuals? The last question posed is what the article of Richard E. Nisbett and Timothy DeCamp Wilson aimed to answer. They aimed to provide an analysis of studies made and explanations regarding the verbal reports of people on their mental processes. The studies showed that people may not have direct access to the higher order mental processes like judgment, evaluation, problem solving and the initiation of behavior. It is the result of thinking that the individuals manifest rather than the process of thinking. Individuals lack the awareness of the operations used or the methods used in arriving at certain perceptions, attitudes, responses or behaviors. Individuals more often than not report on the results or outcomes of their though patterns and not the mechanics of how they came about with those results. Persons would often give out responses or reactions without the ability of explaining how they came about with their responses. In some instances, they can answer why they responded or reacted in a certain way, but they find it difficult to answer how they arrived at the underlying reasons for such responses or reactions. Individuals may react toward a particular stimulus without even being aware of the stimulus, so they cannot explain why they reacted that way because in the first place, they are not conscious of a presence of a stimulus. Cognitive dissonance is an important concept in the discourse on the access and control that individuals have over their mental processes. Cognitive dissonance refers to the inconsistency or discrepancy between attitudes or behaviors. It occurs when individuals must select between two incompatible actions or beliefs. The cognitive dissonance theory states that individuals have the tendency to search for consistency among their cognitions including their beliefs and opinions, in instances where an inconsistency exists between attitudes or behaviors (Festinger and Carlsmith). Elimination of dissonance is usually done by decreasing the importance of conflicting beliefs and acquiring new beliefs to adjust the balance, or doing away with the conflicting behavior or attitude. In most cases, there is a change in attitude to accommodate the behavior. When an individual behaves or reacts in a certain way which he or she later finds out that this behavior or reaction is actually conflicting with what he or she really believes in and what is expected of him or her, the person will usually find some justification for the behavior which will either complement and add a principle to the existing belief, or will modify the belief to rationalize the behavior. In some instances, persons will change their behaviors toward the same stimulus or problem the next time it is presented to them. It may also be possible that as a result of the dissonance, an individual may have totally altered his personal perception or view because of the previous experience and thus, will behave the same way when the same stimulus is presented. The attribution theory states that people try to look for the causes of their emotional, attitudinal and behavioral responses. This is true in cases when they are asked to recount the reasons for certain actions or behaviors by either themselves or by other people. Individuals attribute the causes to several personal and environmental factors. They may not actually refer to the specific situations they are subjected to, but they look at general factors which they may have experienced or observed in the course of their lives. They may attribute some of their reactions to a general perception about a subject. This is where causal schemata enter the picture. Individuals often refer to the general observations about things and events when they are not able to specifically analyze and explain their mental processes. Verbal accounts of attitudinal and behavioral results usually depend on empirical observations of the general kinds of stimuli and the general kinds of responses they elicit. These verbal accounts are also based on the similarity of the type of a particular stimulus to another stimulus which is most likely to result to the same response. Culture is also very significant in the way people think and react to stimuli. It is very instrumental in the workings of an individuals mind. It is also vital in the way an individual verbally accounts for his or her mental processes. In cases when a person may forget his actual reaction to a stimulus, he or she may not be consciously aware of the stimulus, or he or she may not be capable of explaining the underlying processes for coming up with the reaction, that person resorts to personal conceptions which are derived from general views held by the culture he or she belongs to. Concepts of right and wrong, beauty, intelligence, goodness, and other standards are usually determined and shaped by culture. People from different culture react and respond differently to different stimuli because they have different experiences, values, rules, and sentiments which they adhere to. These elements of culture affect their mental processes, which in turn affect the way they analyze and account for their actions and behaviors. There are several factors which contribute to the errors in the verbal reports of mental processes. The factors include removal in time when individuals forget the stimuli presented because of the time elapsed between the actual occurrence and the report, mechanics of judgment which involves position effects among others, context, nonevents or the nonoccurrence of a situation which leads to a conclusion directed toward the opposite end, and nonverbal behaviors like gestures, distance, and volume and tone of voice which may contrast the actual goal of the stimuli. There are also ways or conditions in lessening the errors in verbal reports of mental processes. These conditions relating to stimuli include the availability of the stimuli, reasonable causes of stimuli, and the availability of a few or no reasonable but influential factors. Awareness and introspection are aspects of the mental processes that need to be analyzed and further used by individuals in promoting accurate verbal reporting of their mental processes. Awareness and introspection may lead to a realization of the reasons behind some personal or idiosyncratic responses or reactions to certain stimuli which may stem from past experiences or observations. Intentional or unintentional neglect of some stimuli may also be explained. Lack of knowledge and information regarding a stimulus may also affect the mental processes of a person. Work Cited Festinger, Leon and James M. Carlsmith. "COGNITIVE CONSEQUENCES OF FORCED COMPLIANCE." 1959. Classics in the History of Psychology. 1 Oct 2007 . Read More