As we’ve been privileged to learn in lecture, preference is
not just a matter of choice - it's a universal metric that isn’t necessarily
tied to rationality. It is often fluid and depends on the environment in which
options are presented. While we would like to think that our preferences are a
unique manifestation of our personality and experience, it really is much less
complicated than that. Our preferences are continuously being shaped and
reshaped by the environment we are in currently. Nothing displays this better
than the concept of choice blindness.
At this point in the election cycle, it would seem foolish
to think that a voter is going to change their mind before heading to the
ballot (or at the ballot for that matter) if they’ve already made up their
mind. However, research from the Choice Blindness lab at Lund University has shown that
seemingly concrete parts of our mental map such as moral code and political
ideology are actually extremely flexible. Choice Blindness itself refers to the
fact that we have a tendency to have trouble understanding discrepancies
between choices and outcomes and that we are prepared to offer novel
explanations for choices we did not make even though we were told we did.
In one study, participants filled out a survey on moral code.
Through a “magic trick”, the experimenters administering the survey switched
the the participants answers to show a different set of responses than what
they had indicated. The results showed that the majority of people did not even
notice the switched answers, with some participants giving “coherent and unequivocal
arguments supporting the opposite of their original position.”
In another study at the same lab, participants in a grocery store were
asked to choose which of two jams they liked the most. After selecting their
preferred jam, the experimenters then gave them another taste of their selected
jam and asked them to explain why they liked it. However, the jam flavor was
switched to the one they had actually not preferred. The researchers observed a
similar effect, with people justifying their decision based on the taste, even
though they received the wrong jam.
The takeaway from this is not just that all jams are delicious or that
all political opinions are worthless. It is more so that we must consider the
importance of the environment in which options are presented. On their own, jam
flavor and politics are inherently complicated subjects which we could have separate,
much longer discussions about. These topics are then made even more complex because
of the fact that we also have to consider the way the environment is also
affecting that choice.
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