Timothy D. Wilson is an American social psychologist and writer. He is the Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and teaches public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He is known for his research on self-knowledge and the influence of the unconscious mind on decision-making, preferences and behavior. He is the author of two popular books on psychology.
Wilson is best known for his research on the adaptive unconscious, self-knowledge, and affective forecasting. With Richard Nisbett, Wilson authored one of psychology's most cited papers, "Telling more than we can know – verbal reports on mental processes," that demonstrated the difficulty humans have in introspecting on their own mental processes. His longtime collaborator is Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University.
Wilson received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Hampshire College in 1973 and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan's Department of Psychology in 1977. From 1977 to 1979, he was a faculty member at Duke University. Since 1979, he has been a faculty member at the University of Virginia. His research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation. In 2009, he was named as a fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
