Russell T. Hurlburt

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Professor of Psychology

Expertise: Thoughts, Feelings, Emotions, Sensations

Biography

Russell Hurlburt’s research is centered around inner experience, which includes thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

He is the originator of the Descriptive Experience Sampling method, which uses random beepers and intensive interviews to provide qualitative, idiographic descriptions of inner experience. In the 1970s, Hurlburt was one of the first to use beepers in psychological research and was a creator of the "thought sampling" method.

He believes that the understanding of inner experience is a fundamental task of psychology. He also has researched the experience of adults and adolescents with and without diagnoses such as bulimia, anxiety, schizophrenia, borderline personality, and Asperger's syndrome.

His work has been published in numerous academic articles and journals including the Journal of Consciousness Studies, Investigating pristine inner experience: Moments of truth, and Describing inner experience? Proponent meets skeptic.

Education

Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, University of South Dakota

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Russell T. Hurlburt In The News

I have no inner monologue. I was shocked when I found out others do.

Business Insider

I'll never forget the first time I heard my now-husband talking to himself in the bathroom. We were only dating at the time, and I was convinced there was something wrong with this guy. Fast forward 10 years of marriage, two kids, and several moves, and I've learned to accept this quirk.

Psychologists in the news

American Psychological Association

The Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents has named Russell Hurlburt, PhD, as one of the seven recipients of the 2024 Distinguished Nevadan Award. Hurlburt, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, won for his research on exploring people’s inner experience, including thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

MindMatters: The Varieties of Inner Experience with Russ Hurlburt

Sign of the Times

Inner speaking, inner seeing, feelings, sensory awareness, unsymbolized thinking. Do we all have the same inner experiences? And how aware are we of what we actually experience from moment to moment?

Why inner speech but not music?

Forskning & Framsteg

In the F&F article on inner speech, there was a list of five common types of inner experiences, according to psychology professor Russell T. Hurlburt: emotions, sensory sensations, inner speech, visual thinking, and unsymbolized thinking. I was surprised that music wasn't on the list. I imagine that a fairly large percentage of people can hear inner music in some form, not unlike how we experience inner speech.