Is choice a reliable predictor of choice? A comment on Sagarin and Skowronski

• Published in: Journal of experimental social psychology Vol. 45; no. 2; pp. 425 - 427
• Main Authors: Chen, M. Keith, Risen, Jane L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01.02.2009; Elsevier; Academic Press
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive dissonance; Conflict; Experimental psychology; Free-choice paradigm; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Mere-choice effects; Preference construction; Preferences; Psychological tests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Revealed preferences; Social attribution, perception and cognition; Social psychology; Revealed preferences; Preference construction; Mere-choice effects; Cognitive dissonance; Free-choice paradigm; Human; Choice; Decision making; Preference; Predictive factor; Social cognition
• ISSN: 0022-1031; 1096-0465
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.08.026

In a recent working paper, Chen (2008) argues that a methodology central to the cognitive dissonance literature (the free-choice paradigm) has suffered from an inability to separately measure how much choices affect people’s preferences, and how much they simply reflect those preferences, by failing to fully control for the fact that subjects tend to choose goods they prefer. Although Sagarin and Skowronski concede this, they discount Chen’s argument, claiming that for revealed preferences to completely account for observed choice-effects the relationship between choice and preference would have to be unrealistically high. In this comment, we argue that their critique both misses the crux of Chen’s analysis, and is incorrect. Specifically, to properly test whether choices affect preferences, it is essential that researchers experimentally control for revealed preferences rather than speculate how much of a role they may play. Moreover, Sagarin and Skowronski’s critique rests on two fundamental errors—a misunderstanding of the function of the null-hypothesis and a misunderstanding of preference-measurement psychometrics. These errors leads Sagarin and Skowronski to suggest alternative experimental designs which while a good first step, do not address the problems identified in Chen (2008).