tendency to rationalize choices
Like adults, children and monkeys rationalize their decisions following a tough choice, Yale researchers report in Psychological
Science. — By Jacqueline Weaver
T H I S
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE NEWS
The tendency to rationalize — after, for instance, deciding what job to
take, which car to buy or whom to marry — is a way to resolve “cognitive
dissonance,” a psychological state in which an individual’s beliefs,
attitudes and behaviors are at odds, says Louisa Egan, the lead author of the
study and a doctoral student of psychology.
The dissonance — the anxiety over an appealing road not taken — is
uncomfortable, and people are driven to resolve these feelings by rationalizing
their choices, she explains. One way to do this is by downgrading, or denigrating,
the option that wasn’t chosen.
“For example, if Susan is facing a very hard choice between two cars, A
and B, and comes to choose Car A, this act of making this decision will cause
her estimate of Car B to drop,” Egan says. “She will see it as less
attractive than she did originally.”
The results in this study were based on experiments where preschool children
were asked to choose their favorite stickers, and monkeys selected colored M&Ms.
Both were then given the opportunity to choose an option they had previously
passed up. Both devalued the option they didn’t choose earlier.
“These studies suggest that our motivation to rationalize our decisions
may have deep roots over our lifespan and the evolution of our species,” Egan
says. “The studies also add to a growing body of evidence that we share
fundamental cognitive processes with younger humans and non-human primates.”
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