Abstract
Two experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that affective information looms relatively larger than cognitive information when individuals are distracted for a period of time compared to when they engage in deliberative thinking. In two studies, participants were presented with information about 4 decision alternatives: An affective alternative that scored high on affective attributes but low on cognitive attributes, a cognitive alternative with the opposite trade-off, and two fillers. They were then asked to indicate their attitudes toward each of four decision alternatives either immediately, after a period of deliberation, or after a period of distraction. The results of both experiments demonstrated that participants significantly preferred the affective alternative to the cognitive alternative after distraction, but not after deliberation. The implications for understanding when and how unconscious thought may lead to better decisions are being discussed.
Highlights
When people make a choice, they often need to make tradeoffs between affective and cognitive attributes
Bayesian analysis indicates that distraction may elicit unconscious thought, which leads to different preference pattern between the distraction condition and immediate condition
It should be possible to find a preference reversal in that participants who were in the distraction condition preferred the affective alternative over the cognitive alternative and that participants who engaged in deliberation preferred the cognitive alternative over the affective alternative
Summary
When people make a choice, they often need to make tradeoffs between affective (hedonic) and cognitive (utilitarian) attributes. Given that deliberatively thinking or distracting oneself (or being distracted) for some time are two usual ways for people to make a difficult choice, the central question we ask here is whether the influence of affective and cognitive attributes on preference depends on the two ways of making a choice The answer to this question would shed some light on the underlying process of the effects that deliberation deteriorates (e.g., Wilson and Schooler, 1991; Wilson et al, 1993), while distraction improves decision quality or satisfaction (e.g., Dijksterhuis and Nordgren, 2006; Lerouge, 2009; Ham and van den Bos, 2010; Messner and Wänke, 2011; Strick et al, 2011; Abadie et al, 2013; Creswell et al, 2013). A better understanding of what information can largely
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