How can the explanations we give about our purchasing decisions help us better understand our own thinking?
Subject: Confabulation - Sock Study
Event: Birthday of Richard Eugene Nisbett, 1941
We are shockingly ignorant of the causes of our own behavior. The explanations that we provide are sometimes wholly fabricated, and certainly never complete. Yet, that is not how it feels. Instead, it feels like we know exactly what we're doing and why. This is confabulation: Guessing at plausible explanations for our behavior, and then regarding those guesses as introspective certainties. -Fiery Cushman, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
Imagine you are standing outside of a store. As customers come out of the store with purchased items, you approach some of these people, asking them to explain why they purchased the items that are in their bags. Which of the two kinds of responses do you think is most likely? One: A clearly reasoned explanation for why each item was purchased, or Two: A fictional narrative that justifies each purchase?
Based on the research of psychologist Richard E. Nisbet -- who was born on this day in 1941 -- the second response is probably more likely.
In a classic study, Nisbett and his colleague Timothy Wilson presented subjects with four pairs of nylon stocking pantyhose and asked them to choose the preferred pair. Once subjects selected the pair they liked, they were asked to explain the rationale behind their selection. The subjects attributed their choices to a range of qualities, such as workmanship, elasticity, texture, sheerness, weave, and knit.
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
The key to the study was one significant factor that Nisbett and Wilson withheld from the subjects: all four pairs of stockings were exactly the same. What this means, therefore, is that the explanations provided were not based on relevant evidence; instead, they were made based on plausible arguments that were actually supported by no concrete evidence. The term that describes this kind of common human behavior is confabulation (from the Latin fabula for story), which means that rather than ground our decisions or choices in factual evidence and reasoning, we instead often weave plausible narratives that explain our behavior. And we often are so effective at our storytelling that we’re not even aware that we are telling a fictional story rather than the whole truth.
In the sock study, for example, the one factor that was most influential in the selection of stockings was never mentioned by any of the subjects: the position of the stockings as they were viewed by each subject. The first pair on the far left of each subject was selected 12 percent of the time, the second pair was selected 17 percent of the time, the third pair was selected 31 percent of the time, and the fourth pair, on the far right, was selected 40 percent of the time. Based on an assumption that each subject evaluated the stockings in the typical left to right manner, the key factor in selecting the stockings was which pair was viewed most recently.
Studying confabulation can help us understand the reality of how we sometimes lie to ourselves. We may believe we are giving rational, logical reasons to justify a decision or behavior, but in reality, we may just be confabulating. Taking a moment to reflect consciously will help us to employ metacognition -- thinking about our own thinking -- to make more reasoned decisions rather than just tell more elaborate fables to justify our decisions. Imagine, for example, if you were being interviewed by a hiring committee. Wouldn’t you much rather have people on that committee fully conscious of their decisions? Or would you rather that they confabulated their way through choosing a candidate who just happened to be the last one interviewed?
The core message of confabulation is that although we often assume our decisions in life are based on conscious reasoning, the reality is that this is not always the case. As the sock study illustrates, we are often making decisions or choices based on biases we aren’t even aware of.
Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What is confabulation, and how does the sock study illustrate how it operates in decision-making?
Challenge - Why We Buy: Do some research on the psychology of consumer behavior. What are some of the factors -- either conscious or unconscious -- that influence people to make purchases? Write a brief report on what you learn that might help you and others make better decisions about how to spend money.
ALSO ON THIS DAY:
June 1, 1997: Today is the anniversary of a commencement address that really was not a commencement address at all. The story begins with Mary Schmick, a Pulitzer Price-winning columnist for the Chicago Tribune. On this day she published a column that was so insightful that it took on a life of its own. Somehow an urban legend evolved that Schmich’s words were a commencement address by author Kurt Vonnegut to the 1997 graduates of MIT. The truth is, however, Vonnegut did not present a commencement address to MIT in 1997 nor did he have anything to do with the writing of Schmich’s column. Read the column here: “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.”
Sources:
1-Bortolotti, Lisa. “Confabulation: Why Telling Ourselves Stories Makes Us Feel Ok.” Aeon 13 Feb. 2018.
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