we're joined by professor appa dikes their houses a psychology professor at
brad died university in the netherlands a professor it's really a pleasure to
speak with you i first read about your work in jonno layers book how we decide
and i did more research and you have these two different experiments that you
did with people and decision making logic one that involves two possible
home purchases
and then the other which involves automobile purchases let's start with
the automobile experiment that needed to give give us give our audience a sense
of what that involved
uh...
well uh... when it when i started to uh... to be interested in in decision
making in decision making research i discovered that
and
the emphasis in the
uh... in in almost all models and theories
is on conscious thought the ideas that the more you consciously deliberates the
better your decisions will cats
and
we thought that the time this this make you so much so the truth to this cannot
be in search for you
uh...
and what what what we did is we we have people choose between various
hypothetical cars
um...
under different conditions of severe under some conditions people want
receive the information about the hypothetical cars and then the site
immediately
and now there are other conditions
uh... people we're given information that the cars and then they could
consciously think for quite awhile administered commission we did something
uh... something new isn't something that we found interesting
uh... we gave people the information about the cars can we told them later
you will have to make a decision but now we're actually going to do something
else
and they were occupied it's just some some funds ask that
and took a while
uh... and that
bizarre people and conscious thought
uh... and yet it was that that while they were doing this they would engage
in what we have cold on conscious thought
have been under these conditions it turned out people uh... at least under
some circumstances make the best decision sometimes unconscious thoughts
is actually better than conscious thought
especially when it comes to rather complex issues that involve a lot of
information
so when it turned out with with the car set up was that there was one vehicle
which was the though i don't know that one is that the other email your
religion they should be out really week
we constructed the information such related work for cars and one was made
uh... more attractive than the other status was not immediately
uh... apparent because all cars were described by many different aspects
uh... so so the total set of information is actually quite large
so am i correct in saying that even though the kind of two trip conventional
wisdom might suggest the more research the more information you have about
something
and the more time you take
to make a decision
your decision would be better informed but there seems to be kind of a
diminishing marginal returns to to information does they're not in other
words when you start winning
too many factors in the decision people actually started making a a wrong
decision
of that's very often true there's not always it's not always the case that
more information is certainly it soooo better decision
uh...
it's especially true
no if you only base your decision on conscious deliberation if u
if you have the period of what we call conscious thought to period of coaches
the liberation your decision is generally do much better
let me uh... put put up another different scenario it's interesting
because you know uh... arye collector single malt whisky as you have behind
you
and my producer here believes he does some bartending and he believes himself
to be a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to liquor as well and we have seen
countless of these blind taste tests
with daniel weingarten etcetera
and the information seems to indicate that
people when they're actually given a true blind taste taste test can't really
identified the more expensive wine or the more expensive vodka
however once you put there
price tag of their people start to think that the more expensive whatever it is
we're talking about
is actually better
talk a little bit about how that plays into the experiments you you my produces
convinced
he would be able to determine the better vodka
uh...
well i guess it all the it it'll shows that
the expectations we have
uh... largely n also unconsciously determines uh...
we are we experienced drinking winery ceo whatever and also what you think the
qualities
uh...
it's it's uh... at that speed on the done such such low experiments on the on
on them
uh... whiskey festivals and uh...
and people are the extremely poor at
at at blind taste test
and it's hard to convince people that they are sold for a bit
people generally do not believe that it's nice suits who believe in the
illusion that you're actually good at this
and i think that often the only the only way to get people to believe in how poor
they are doing is to have to do a boeing tasteless and then they will they're
forced to admit
um...
that that they're really not very good at it
it's it's a good example of of how uh...
are false and also decisionmaking processes
are uh... are
are influenced by all kinds of on conscious processes seems we are not
aware of
so i want to go up along those lines to the example of the the house choices so
a common scenario that we present is
uh... people looking at two houses they're both the same price one is a ten
minute drive from their work
and it is a slightly smaller house the other is out in the suburbs it's a forty
five minute commute to work but it has one extra room and maybe a half bathroom
at the bigger house
both in the same price it turns out and correct me if i'm wrong
no longer people think about the decision
the more likely they are top-up
for the house that's bigger and in the suburbs
and year later the more likely they are to have to regret that decision is that
correct
uh... yesterday it this there's definitely reasons to believe that
there's no there's no scientific study i think that that's shows that incredibly
so let me but yes what what we tend to often do
who when we
uh... when we make a decision such as
this choice between these two houses
it's we we use conscious deliberation not to be critical which is what we
should do
we use conscious deliberation to sort of
uh... verify or validates our our first intuition so we see that large house
and we will create
and what would we do we start to find reasons
stood so that we can actually ally
to ourselves and other people around us that it's actually very good idea to buy
that house
and that of course fees to regret in that case also it's a much better
strategy to uh... to consciously deliberate but not too much aneta period
of hong kong to start
uh... ending this case with the real house i would say days or or maybe even
a week or hong kong to start
so that if there are
doubts
somewhere day they have time to surfers uh... and and and iss-consulting emsa
leads
people to work
two at the very end not make that the wrong choices they were about to make
the question i had when i looked at that ah... at that those studies was
a question of causation versus correlation because is it possible
that those who abar already more dissatisfied with their jobs with opt
for the house that's further away
and then year later report that they are less happy but they were they were
already less happy with their job i mean sometimes with these it's hard to parse
out correlation causation isn't it
uh... yes that's definitely true
uh...
that that that that i would say the general problem with decisionmaking
research that we couldn't do all these controls website studies
uh... so that we know it's causation rather correlation
but these studies are are not be lied about
the b
very important decisions that we make in real life alternatively we can do field
studies and those can be about these really important big decisions we make
in real life began
of course the correlation for cisco's issue question kexin so it's it's uh...
the the best way to do it is actually if you study in new phenomenon to tried
both ways go to the lab and to a field study
uh... but with these big field studies you're right you can never do can ever
be on the person sure
excellent we've been speaking with professor affect their houses a
psychology professor at radford university and have been the netherlands
uh... really fascinating work that you're doing it's it's a pleasure to
meet with you about this