Why Your Choice Seems to Be the Best, Even When It Doesn't

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Cognitive dissonance puts rose-colored glasses on you.

You have decided to buy a new smartphone, have chosen two suitable ones, but doubt which one you prefer. After evaluating all the pros and cons, you finally choose one and buy it.

Now you like him much more than half an hour ago, when you looked dubiously at both options. And in the future, you may begin to give preference to the same brand, even if the other offers a better product for the same money.

This is to blame for the distortion of the choice made - a psychological effect that was discovered more than 60 years ago. And since then, its existence has been repeatedly confirmed.

What is the essence of distortion

For the first time, the distortion of the choice made was observed in an experiment with household appliances. The students were asked to evaluate different models, and then choose one of the devices as a gift. After 20 minutes, they were again asked to rate the entire technique.

And this time, the devices they chose as a gift received more flattering characteristics than at the beginning of the test.

The author of the experiment, Professor Jack W. Brehm, suggested that this is due to cognitive dissonance. After choosing a person, doubts arise, because the chosen thing also has advantages, and the rejected one has advantages. He experiences psychological discomfort, is afraid that he has chosen the wrong one. To get rid of unpleasant sensations, a person is looking for confirmation that he did everything right. And, of course, he finds him.

Moreover, the greater the similarity between the proposed options, the stronger the dissonance and the more a person likes his choice.

The distortion of the choice made was observed in a variety of experiments. Experiments have even been conducted with people suffering from amnesia. They didn't remember the first part of the experiment, but they still rated the item they had already chosen better than the others. The choice was offered to children and even rhesus monkeys, and the same thing was observed everywhere.

The participants always preferred what they chose for the first time.

It works even in the absence of real benefit and changes the way the brain responds to choices and alternatives.

How choices change how the brain reacts

In one study, participants were asked to choose where they wanted to go on vacation, and brain activity was monitored at the time of the decision and after it using MRI. At the same time, the choice was purely hypothetical: the participants were not going to give a ticket, and they knew about it.

It turned out that after the choice, the reaction of people to the location changed. When they imagined leave at the selected location, the caudate nucleus activity increased. It is an area of the brain that is activated when a person envisions something good in the future. The rejected location did not evoke such an answer.

Why this can be a problem

There is nothing wrong with liking your choice. This is even good: you are not tormented by doubts and regrets.

The problem arises when you refuse to admit that your choices might be worse.

It is loyalty to a brand that has stopped producing decent products, stuck in a disruptive relationship, a job in a specialty that was initially chosen incorrectly.

Just acknowledge the fact that the rejected thing, specialty, relationship, too, has its advantages, and the ones you choose have disadvantages. This will help you to abandon the belief that “your own is a priori better than someone else's” and not hold on to something that requires change.