The curious incident of inner speech in self-regulation: A rejoinder to Morin (2022)

Abstract

Morin (2022)’s first objection is that our findings are at odds with the literature. We show that they are not: (a) We already agreed that inner speech and executive control can be causally related under specific circumstances, including in development, and (b) we obtained the same pattern of correlations between self-awareness, inner speech, and self-regulation others have. We reiterate that the issue is not the correlations, but the lack of evidence for any mediated relationship between habitual inner speech and self-regulation. We also argue against Morin’s second point—the proposed inadequacy of our surveys. Ultimately, however, we feel that an empirical foray is needed to settle our differences and find truth, and we thus propose an adversarial collaboration to that effect.

Keywords

• consciousness
• self-awareness
• inner speech
• mindfulness