Choice perception: Making sense (and nonsense) of others’ decisions

• Published in: Current opinion in psychology Vol. 43; pp. 176 - 181
• Main Authors: Barasz, Kate, Kim, Tami
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2022
• Subjects: Choice Behavior; Choice perception; Decision-making; Humans; Interpersonal inferences; Judgment; Perception; Prediction; Social perception; Choice perception; Decision-making; Social perception; Interpersonal inferences; Prediction; Judgment
• ISSN: 2352-250X; 2352-2518; 2352-250X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.07.010

People constantly and effortlessly acquire information about one another’s decisions and use this information to form impressions (and judgments) of others. We review research on this process of choice perception — how people come to make sense of others’ choices. We suggest that choice perception consists of observers’ inferences about (a) what was chosen, (b) why it was chosen, (c) how (or through what process) it was chosen, and (d) broader impressions about who chose it. These inferences can affect observers in multiple ways, such as prompting erroneous beliefs about the actor due to interpersonal errors (i.e., mistakes in how observers perceive actors) and cue-perception errors (i.e., mistakes in how observers perceive chosen options), as well as changes in one’s own behavior. •Choice perception examines the inferences made by observers about others’ choices.•This includes what was chosen, as well as why, how, and by whom it was chosen.•Choice perception often leads observers to erroneous conclusions.•These misperceptions occur due to interpersonal and cue-perception errors.