Thinking Too Much: Introspection Can Reduce the Quality of Preferences and Decisions…

Thinking Too Much: Introspection Can Reduce the Quality of Preferences and Decisions
Introduction
When faced with a difficult decision, people sometimes spend a good deal of time thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative. At one point or another, most of us have even reached for a sheet of paper and made a list of pluses and minuses, hoping that the best course of action would become clear. Reflection of this kind is generally thought to be beneficial, organizing what might otherwise be a confusing jumble of thoughts and feelings.
Curiously, however, there has been almost no research on the effects of reflection and deliberation on the quality of decision making. One reason for this lack of research is the difficulty of assessing how good any particular decision is. The purpose of the present studies was to examine the effects of two different kinds of introspection on decision making. We hypothesized that contrary to conventional wisdom, introspection is not always beneficial and might even be detrimental under some circumstances.
Methods
We purchased five brands of strawberry jams or preserves that varied in their overall quality, as reported by
Consumer Reports
magazine (“Strawberry Jams,” 1985). The
Consumer Reports
rankings were based on the ratings of seven consultants who were trained sensory panelists. These experts rated 16 sensory characteristics (such as sweetness, bitterness, and aroma) of 45 jams; these ratings were averaged to compute the ranking of each jam. The jams we purchased were ranked 1st, 11th, 24th, 32nd, and 44th.
After receiving these initial instructions and signing a consent form, subjects were randomly assigned to a control or a reasons analysis condition. Reasons analysis subjects received written instructions asking them to “analyze why you feel the way you do about each” jam, “in order to prepare yourself for your evaluations.” They were told that they would be asked to list their reasons for liking or disliking the jams after they tasted them, the purpose of which was to organize their thoughts. They were also told that they would not be asked to hand in their list of reasons. Control subjects did not receive any additional instructions.
All subjects were then asked to sit at a table with five plates, each containing a plastic spoon with approximately 1/2 teaspoon (3.3 ml) of strawberry jam. The jams were labeled with a letter from A to E and were presented in one random order. Experimenter 1 left the room, during which time the subjects tasted each of the five jams.
All subjects tasted the jams without filling out any questionnaires and then were given a questionnaire to fill out when the experimenter returned. Subjects in the reasons condition received the reasons questionnaire. Subjects in the control condition received a filler questionnaire instructing them to list reasons why they chose their major.
Experimenter 1 introduced subjects to Experimenter 2, who was unaware of whether they had analyzed reasons. Experimenter 2 gave subjects a questionnaire on which to evaluate the jams, which consisted of a 9-point scale ranging from disliked (1) to liked (9) for each jam. Subjects were instructed to complete the questionnaire and to place it through a slot in a covered box, to maintain anonymity. Experimenter 2 left the room while subjects made their ratings.
Results and Discussion
Mean ratings for the five jams:
1
2
3
4
5
Control Group
Mean
6.52
7.64
6.12
2.72
4.68
SD
2.22
1.68
2.05
2.26
2.66
Reasons Group
Mean
4.54
6.25
5.42
2.88
4.92
SD
2.00
2.38
2.70
2.13
2.89
Note: The jams are listed in order of their ranking by the
Consumer Reports
experts. Jam 1 was the highest ranked jam, Jam 2 was the second highest, and so on.
Left to their own devices, control subjects formed preferences for strawberry jams that corresponded well to the ratings of trained sensory experts. Subjects asked to think about why they liked or disliked the jams brought to mind reasons that did not correspond very well with the experts’ ratings. They then seem to have based their preferences on these reasons (in other words, the correlation between the attitude implied by their reasons and their subsequent preferences was extremely high). As a result, their preferences did not correspond as well with expert opinion. No evidence was found for the possibility that analyzing reasons moderated subjects’ judgments. Instead, it changed people’s minds about how they felt, presumably because certain aspects of the jams that were not central to their initial evaluations were weighted more heavily (for example, their chunkiness or tartness).
It might be argued that there should have been a greater correspondence between the experts and subjects who analyzed reasons, because both sets of people made their ratings in an analytical frame of mind. The ratings made by the two groups, however, differed in important ways. First, the experts were provided in advance with a list of 16 criteria on which to evaluate the jams. In contrast, the subjects had to decide for themselves which criteria to use, increasing the probability that they would focus on a few attributes that were salient and plausible as causes of their preferences. Second, the experts were trained sensory panelists with a good deal of experience in tasting food items. Thus, even if the experts evaluated the jams analytically, we would expect their ratings to differ from the subjects in our reasons condition, who were not experts.
Source: Wilson, T. D., & Schooler, J. W. (1991). Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
,
60
(2), 181-192.
What was the primary difference between the control and experimental groups in this experiment?
The experimental group was asked to provide reasons for liking or disliking the jams they tasted, whereas the control group was not.
The experimental group tasted a different set of jams than the control group.
The experimental group rated each jam on a 9-point