Self-reported inner speech use in university students

Remarkably little is known regarding what people talk to themselves about (inner speech use) in their everyday lives. Existing self-directed speech measures (e.g., thought sampling and questionnaires) either uniquely capture inner speech frequency and neglect its content or classify self-reported thoughts instances in overly simplistic categories determined by the researchers. In the current study, we describe an open-format thought listing procedure as well as a refined coding scheme and present detailed inner speech content self-generated by 76 university students. The most frequently self-reported inner speech activities were self-regulation (e.g., planning and problem solving), self-reflection (e.g., emotions, self-motivation, appearance, behavior/performance, and autobiography), critical thinking (e.g., evaluating, judging, and criticizing), people in general, education, and current events. Inner speech occurred most commonly while studying and driving. These results are consistent with the self-regulatory and self-referential functions of inner speech often emphasized in the literature. Future research avenues using the open-format inner speech listing procedure and coding scheme are proposed.