Context
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are” said the French lawyer and gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. It is embedded in our culture that choices reveal who we are.
“We are our choices” said the French author Jean-Paul Sartre. This quote could indicate that our choices make us what we are.
In short, we believe that choices are closely linked with the self, whether our choices are an expression of ourselves or whether our choices construct ourselves. However, is this conviction always founded? Indeed, some situations can bias decision-making. For instance, when choices are hard to make, do they still define who we really are?
Research questions
Since choice difficulty may change how choices reveal the self or define the self, this research aims at answering two main questions:
– does previous choice difficulty impact future similar choices? In other words, does choice difficulty impact preference generalization?
– are easy choices more diagnostic of who we really are than difficult choices?
Method
The article was based on two experiments.
In the first study, Steffel and Williams imposed upon participants scenarios in which a choice (publishing content on a new music app or not) and its difficulty (the choice was easy or hard to make) were already defined, which allowed them to manipulate first choice and first choice difficulty. Based on this previous imposed choice, they asked participants to assess:
– expected choice difficulty: would participants say this kind of choice is usually easy or hard to make for people in general?
– perceived diagnosticity: do participants believe that this choice depicts who they really are?
– future behavior in similar situations: would participants share more information on the app in the future?
In the second study, the authors manipulated choice format to measure perceived choice difficulty and its impact on perceived diagnosticity and future behavior.
Results
– People are expected to generalize their preferences when their initial choice was easy (vs neutral or hard) to make. This is because people think a choice is more diagnostic of who they are when it was easy to make (vs neutral or hard).
– When people’s expectations do not match their experienced choice difficulty, the effects described above are stronger. In other words, when people expect to make an easy choice, but end up finding it hard to make this choice, preference generalization and perceived diagnosticity decrease. Respectively, when people expect to make a difficult choice, but end up finding it easy to make this choice, preference generalization and perceived diagnosticity increase.
– The more the format of a choice option is fluent, the more consumers feel the choice is easy to make. Therefore, fluency of a first choice option predicts preference generalization. This result may not be true across domains (ex: true concerning financial behavior but does not seem to work for health/safety decisions).
Why is this article relevant for researchers?
This research further explains decision making and shows that perceived choice difficulty is key to understanding how consumer preferences emerge. Although previous research already demonstrated how choice difficulty influences what people think they might choose when presented with the same options again, this research extends this idea to similar choices in different situations. Future research could explore:
– incentives that could influence choice difficulty
– external validity across domains and over time
– implications for thoughtful decision-making
Why is this article relevant for professionals?
This article reveals the importance of first choice difficulty on preference generalization through perceived diagnosticity. Therefore, marketers should focus on making consumers’ choices as easy as possible. For instance, Bliss Boutique skillfully advises buyers to indulge in a dress “before someone else does”.
This research also shows that choice difficulty can be manipulated through the fluency of the option format. This could encourage professionals to work on format fluency when presenting consumers with various options. It could be especially useful for distributors who aim at promoting certain products.
Even though this research advocates against an impact of choice difficulty on health and safety decisions, the need for fluency of choice option has already been taken into account in many health or safety campaigns. For instance, this Transport Accident Commission Victoria ad, launched in 2000, guides citizens’ behavior by displaying the dreadful consequences of drunk driving. Maybe political campaigns could also benefit from this research?