Automatic self-interest talk persists even when volunteers know it misdescribes their motives

Evidence

Whenever I mentioned that all the groups I studied said they were involved for the children,'' volunteers would reconsider the phrase for just a moment, say that indeed anything could be considered to be close to home” and for the children,'' and then, just moments later, all would revert to the close to home,” “for the children” discourse. This vocabulary of self-interest was so automatic, volunteers could not extricate themselves from it even when they rationally knew that it did not adequately describe their motives. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 41

Categorization

• XREF: Plausibly connects to how auto-association and framing literatures on how discourse constrains even knowing speakers; resembles ‘thinking, fast and slow’ System 1 defaults. — connects to: Self-interest talk tracks the speaker’s perceived lack of power — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 35; People cling to self-interest vocabularies even when they contradict experienced motives; Expressions of narrow self-interest are rhetorical performances rather than literal self-reports — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 3

Broader Connections

• People cling to self-interest vocabularies even when they contradict experienced motives #corroborates (0.92)
• Expressions of narrow self-interest are rhetorical performances rather than literal self-reports #corroborates (0.85) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 3