Richard E. Nisbett
Richard E. Nisbett (born June 1, 1941) is an American social psychologist and writer. He is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan. He earned his PhD at Columbia University, studying under Stanley Schachter.
Nisbett studies how people think in social settings, how culture shapes thinking, social class, and aging. One of his most influential works is the 1977 article with T. D. Wilson, "Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes," which argued that many mental processes are unconscious and that people’s introspective reports reflect only what they think about their thoughts, not how they actually think. He also wrote The Geography of Thought, arguing that Asians and Westerners have developed different, measurable ways of thinking. In Intelligence and How to Get It, he argues that environment plays a larger role than genetics in intelligence, a view that sparked debate.
With Edward E. Jones, he helped describe the actor–observer bias in attribution theory. Critics and fans discuss his ideas, and Malcolm Gladwell has called him the most influential thinker in his life. Nisbett has received awards such as the Donald T. Campbell Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was born in Littlefield, Texas, and is married to Sarah Isaacs with two children.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 14:50 (CET).