Introspection illusion refers to a cognitive bias wherein individuals tend to overestimate their ability to understand the reasons behind their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. People may feel confident that they have direct access to their internal mental states and can accurately assess their motivations and the processes that drive their actions, when in fact, they often lack this insight. This phenomenon can lead to a disparity between an individual's perceived understanding of their inner workings and the actual complexity of those processes.
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The introspection illusion is overconfidence in the completeness or accuracy of one’s access to the processes that produced a judgment or action. A person can accurately report a current feeling while misidentifying what caused it. Comparing verbal explanations with experimentally manipulated influences tests that distinction. Choice blindness supplies a striking example: a plausible reason can be given for an outcome covertly substituted for the one originally selected. [ref]
Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes by Richard E. Nisbett and Timothy D. Wilson. 1977, access to mental contents versus access to causal processes