Causal report accuracy: Retrospect and prospect

Abstract The paper by M. Sprangers, W. van den Brink, J. van Heerden, and J. Hoogstraten (1987 , Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 23 , 302–310) shows that my experiment ( P. White, 1980 , Psychological Review , 87 , 105–112) cannot be interpreted as evidence against the proposal by R. Nisbett and T. Wilson (1977 , Psychological Review , 84 , 231–259) that accuracy of causal reports cannot be improved by information about internal events. However, the state of all existing literature on this topic is inconclusive because of the failure so far to run an internally valid test. It is suggested that further progress on this topic may depend upon theoretical innovation concentrating on social and practical factors in verbal report generation.

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