Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious mental and usually purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul. It can also be called contemplation of one's self, and is contrasted with extrospection, the observation of things external to one's self. Introspection may be used synonymously with self-reflection and used in a similar way.
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Behaviorists claimed that introspection was unreliable and that the subject matter of scientific psychology should be strictly operationalized in an objective and measurable way. This then led psychology to focus on measurable behavior rather than consciousness or sensation.[1] Cognitive psychology accepts the use of the scientific method, but often rejects introspection as a valid method of investigation for this reason, especially concerning the causes of behavior and choice. Herbert Simon and Allen Newell identified the 'thinking-aloud' protocol, in which investigators view a subject engaged in a task, and who speaks his thoughts aloud, thus allowing study of his thought process without forcing the subject to comment on his thinking.
On the other hand, introspection can be considered a valid tool for the development of scientific hypotheses and theoretical models, in particular in cognitive sciences and engineering. In practice, functional (goal-oriented) computational modeling and computer simulation design of meta-reasoning and metacognition are closely connected with the introspective experiences of researchers and engineers.
Introspection was used by German physiologist Wilhelm Wundt in the experimental psychology laboratory he had founded in Leipzig in 1879. Wundt believed that by using introspection in his experiments he would gather information into how the subjects' minds were working, thus he wanted to examine the mind into its basic elements. Wundt did not invent this way of looking into an individual's mind through their experiences; rather, it can date to Socrates. Wundt's distinctive contribution was to take this method into the experimental arena and thus into the newly formed field of psychology.
Psychological research on cognition and attribution has asked people to report on their mental processes, for instance to say why they made a particular choice or how they arrived at a judgement. In some situations, these reports are clearly confabulated.[2] For example, people justify choices they have not in fact made.[3] Such results undermine the idea that those verbal reports are based on direct introspective access to mental content. Instead, judgements about one's own mind seem to be inferences from overt behavior, similar to judgements made about another person.[2] However, it is hard to assess whether these results only apply to unusual experimental situations, or if they reveal something about everyday introspection.[4] The theory of the adaptive unconscious suggests that a very large proportion of mental processes, even "high-level" processes like goal-setting and decision-making, are inaccessible to introspection.[5]
Even when their introspections are uninformative, people still give confident descriptions of their mental processes, being "unaware of their unawareness".[6] This phenomenon has been termed the introspection illusion and has been used to explain some cognitive biases[7] and belief in some paranormal phenomena.[8] When making judgements about themselves, subjects treat their own introspections as reliable, whereas they judge other people based on their behavior.[9] This can lead to illusions of superiority. For example, people generally see themselves as less conformist than others, and this seems to be because they do not introspect any urge to conform.[10] Another reliable finding is that people generally see themselves as less biased than everyone else, because they do not introspect any biased thought processes.[9] These introspections are misleading, however, because biases work sub-consciously. One experiment tried to give their subjects access to others' introspections. They made audio recordings of subjects who had been told to say whatever came into their heads as they answered a question about their own bias.[9] Although subjects persuaded themselves they were unlikely to be biased, their introspective reports did not sway the assessments of observers. When subjects were explicitly told to avoid relying on introspection, their assessments of their own bias became more realistic.[9]
In Eastern Christianity, some of the concepts critical to addressing the needs of man such as sober introspection, called nepsis, are specific to watchfulness of the human heart and address the conflicts of the human nous, heart or mind. Also noetic understanding can not be circumvented nor satisfied by rationalizing or discursive thought (i.e. systemization).
Introspections (also referred to as internal dialogue, interior monologue, self-talk) is the fiction-writing mode used to convey a character's thoughts. As explained by Renni Browne and Dave King, "One of the great gifts of literature is that it allows for the expression of unexpressed thoughts…" (Browne and King 2004, p. 117).
According to Nancy Kress, a character's thoughts can greatly enhance a story: deepening characterization, increasing tension, and widening the scope of a story (Kress 2003, p. 38). As outlined by Jack M. Bickham, thought plays a critical role in both scene and sequel (Bickham 1993, pp. 12–22, 50-58). Among authors and writing coaches, there appears to be little consensus regarding the importance of introspection [11] and how it is best presented.[12]
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