IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/osloec/2009_018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Prevalent is Post-Decision Dissonance? Some Doubts and New Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Holden, Steinar

    (Dept. of Economics, University of Oslo)

Abstract

Recent research is exploring the case for cognitive or post-decision dissonance using the free-choice paradigm of Brehm (1956). Participants are repeatedly faced with a choice between items that they have given the same rating of liking, two items at a time, and it is found that items not chosen in one choice has a lower tendency of being chosen in a subsequent choice against a different alternative item. This tendency is interpreted as evidence for cognitive or post-decision dissonance. I argue that this interpretation of the evidence is invalid. Furthermore, I report a novel experiment in which participants were specifically asked to compare the items, allowing for a consistent interpretation of the evidence. I find no evidence of post-decision dissonance after a choice between items where one was viewed as more attractive than the other, but potentially some weak evidence of post-decision dissonance after a choice between items viewed as equally attractive.

Suggested Citation

  • Holden, Steinar, 2009. "How Prevalent is Post-Decision Dissonance? Some Doubts and New Evidence," Memorandum 18/2009, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:osloec:2009_018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sv.uio.no/econ/english/research/unpublished-works/working-papers/pdf-files/2009/Memo-18-2009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. M. Keith Chen, 2008. "Rationalization and Cognitive Dissonance: Do Choices Affect or Reflect Preferences?," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000002336, David K. Levine.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steinar Holden, 2009. "Do Choices Affect Preferences? Some Doubts and New Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 2868, CESifo.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:10:y:2015:i:1:p:34-49 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bellemare, Marc F., 2012. "As You Sow, So Shall You Reap: The Welfare Impacts of Contract Farming," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 1418-1434.
    4. Géraldine Coppin & Sylvain Delplanque & Christelle Porcherot & Isabelle Cayeux & David Sander, 2012. "When Flexibility Is Stable: Implicit Long-Term Shaping of Olfactory Preferences," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-13, June.
    5. repec:jdm:journl:v:17:y:2022:i:4:p:768-796 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Bellemare, Marc F. & Holmberg, Andrew M., 2010. "The Determinants of Music Piracy in a Sample of College Students," MPRA Paper 23641, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Mikael Elinder, 2012. "Correcting mistakes: cognitive dissonance and political attitudes in Sweden and the United States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 235-249, October.
    8. Arad, Ayala, 2013. "Past decisions do affect future choices: An experimental demonstration," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 267-277.
    9. Muhammad Abid & Ahmed Imran Hunjra & Babar Khalid, 2015. "The Impact of Safety Training on the Performance of Employees of an Electricity Distribution Company in Pakistan," Journal of Policy Research (JPR), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 1(3), pages 100-116, September.
    10. Christopher Turansick, 2023. "Random Utility, Repeated Choice, and Consumption Dependence," Papers 2302.05806, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    11. Cherepanov, Vadim & Feddersen, Timothy & ,, 2013. "Rationalization," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(3), September.
    12. Davis, Robert & Lang, Bodo, 2012. "Modeling the effect of self-efficacy on game usage and purchase behavior," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 67-77.
    13. Jonathan Lowell, 2012. "Managers and Moral Dissonance: Self Justification as a Big Threat to Ethical Management?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(1), pages 17-25, January.
    14. Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2018. "A Bridge from Monty Hall to the Hot Hand: Restricted Choice, Selection Bias, and Empirical Practice," OSF Preprints dmgtp, Center for Open Science.
    15. repec:cup:judgdm:v:17:y:2022:i:4:p:768-796 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Bellemare, Marc F. & Lee, Yu Na & Novak, Lindsey, 2021. "Contract farming as partial insurance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    17. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Fei Shi, 2015. "Choice-induced preference change and the free-choice paradigm: A clarification," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 10(1), pages 34-49, January.
    18. Muhammad Abid & Ahmed Imran Hunjra & Babar Khalid, 2019. "The Impact of Safety Training on the Performance of Employees of an Electricity Distribution Company in Pakistan," Journal of Policy Research (JPR), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 5(1), pages 1-17, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    post-decision dissonance; cognitive dissonance; preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:osloec:2009_018. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mari Strønstad Øverås (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/souiono.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.