Explain thy actions

Malcolm Gladwell, the famous author of 'blink!' and 'The Tipping Point', in his seminar delivered at PopCast!, argued that whenever people are asked to make a choice and give a reason for it, an astounding majority make the wrong decision or rather, they make a decision that is simple to justify. The need for justification plays a role in our decision process!!!

To elaborate this, he cited the example of Aeron chair (regarded as the best selling and best designed ergonomic chair, find out more on http://www.hermanmiller.com/CDA/SSA/Product/0,,a10-c440-p8,00.html). When the chair was developed, all market survey indicated that it will be a huge disaster but, it turned out to be a best seller within 4 years. The people who had criticized the chair initially, appreciated it and bought it in volumes! How come they changed their opinion from one extreme to the other? Well, according to Malcolm, it was not a change at all. Since, the people had to rate the chair initially, they had to comment i.e. they had to think. This made them take the wrong decision whereas actually, they liked the chair. The chair happened to be radically different at the time it was launched so, it was easier to say I don't like the chair because its so much….. not like a regular chair! He strongly advocated that when people are made to explain what their preference is, they usually gravitate negatively towards the other side and express a preference that is actually opposite of their actual preference.

Another example is of an experiment conducted on a group of students. Each student was asked to pick a portrait out of a bulk of portraits. The portraits were of 2 types. Half the students were asked to justify why they chose a particular portrait. Whereas the other half was not asked to explain. It was observed that the group that did not have to explain their decision chose quite a few abstract portraits while the group that had to explain their decision chose almost no abstract portraits. Also, when a feedback was taken, most of the students of the group that had to justify their decision were unhappy with their selection whereas a majority of the students from the other group were satisfied with their selection.

Think about it for a second. Has it ever happened to you? Were you ever asked to justify why a particular car/house/any article is your favorite and you had a tough time doing it? Maybe yes, maybe not. Or maybe this is just one side of the story, there could be more to the other side also……. Whatever it is, just be alert the next time decide on anything and leave a comment if you observe anything fishy……

To see the video you can visit http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/ It is available for download, free of cost. (Check out many other interesting videos on the same site).

Agree with me? Disagree with me? Leave a comment…….