Introspection illusion

What it is

Believing we know why we think, feel or choose as we do by looking inward, when the real causes are often hidden from us.

Related

• Cognitive dissonance bias
  We build reasons for our actions after the fact to reduce dissonance and then trust them.
• Bias blind spot bias
  We assume looking inward reveals our biases, which it largely does not, so we see them in others instead.
• Inattentional blindness bias
  Both are overconfidence about the mind's workings: we think we see and know our own minds more than we do.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#67: Introspection illusion

References

• Wikipedia: Introspection illusion en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

More in “What it means: finding patterns and stories”