What a person thinks upon learning he has chosen differently from others: Nice evidence for the persuasive-arguments explanation of choice shifts

Abstract

Small shifts in choice occur even without discussion, when individuals merely know each other's preference. This appears to support an interpersonal comparison explanation of group induced shifts in choice and to refute explanations based on persuasive argumentation. The present study demonstrates the contrary, that such effects are consistent with the persuasive-arguments formulation and are obtained under particular conditions specified only by the latter theory, to wit: Knowledge of other's choices is assumed to lead a person to think of reasons (arguments) others might have had for their choices-reasons which ordinarily would not come to mind without this knowledge. Such reasoning functions in the same way as persuasive argumentation during group discussion; it causes the person to persuade himself that an alternative course of action now has greater merit than the one he initially preferred. To test this analysis, an experiment was performed in which subjects responded to choice-dilemma items under three different conditions: Following their own choice (I) they learned what several others had chosen and then wrote arguments in support of alternatives given in that same item; (II) they learned what several others had chosen and then wrote arguments in support of alternatives given in a different item; and (III) they received no information about others' choices but merely wrote arguments on that item. As predicted, shifts in choice occurred only if the person knew what others chose and had an opportunity to think about the latter (condition I); they did not occur if an opportunity to think of others' choices was denied (condition II), nor if knowledge of others' choices was withheld (condition III). Content analysis of the arguments subjects produced in conditions I and II completely supported the hypothesis, as did analyses of responses to postexperimental questionnaire which directly asked the subjects about their feelings and thoughts upon learning what others had chosen.