Jan 27 2009
Trust Your Instincts When Making Consumer Decisions
New research indicates following your instincts when making consumer decisions is generally better than deliberating over them.
The studies, conducted by Loran F. Nordgren from Northwestern University and Ap Dikjsterhuis from Radboud University in the Netherlands, examined the effects of deliberation on making decisions about abstract and actual consumer objects.
In the first study, participants were asked to rate Chinese ideograms for their attractiveness. In another study, participants were asked to rate paintings that were considered to be high or low quality in nature. In other studies, participants rated apartments and jellybeans.
In all of the studies, some of the participants were encouraged to think about their decision before making it while others were encouraged to go with their instincts.
The researchers discovered the more complex the decision, the less useful deliberation was. For instance, when participants rated apartments on primary characteristics, such as their price, locations, and size deliberating about the decision was useful. On the contrary, participants who deliberated about apartments with nine different characteristics made worse decisions than those who trusted their instincts.
I think the results of these studies are rather interesting. What do you think? Please tell me in the comments section below.
Source:
Psych Central: Trust Your Instincts
