Making a decision changes the way we think about our options. Photo credit: Will Kirk / Johns Hopkins University
When a baby is reaching for a stuffed toy in a room that is filled with others just like him, this seemingly random choice is very bad news for those unselected toys: the baby has likely just decided that he doesn’t like what he doesn’t has chosen.
Although researchers have long known that adults develop unconscious biases throughout their lives when they make decisions between things that are essentially the same, the new Johns Hopkins University shows that even babies deal with this phenomenon that this kind of justification of decisions intuitive and somehow fundamental is the human experience.
“The decision changes the way we think about our options,” said co-author Alex Silver, a former Johns Hopkins student who now has a degree in cognitive psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. “Even infants who are really just beginning to make decisions for themselves have this tendency.”
The results are published in the journal today Psychological science.
People assume they choose things they like. However, research has shown that this is sometimes backwards: we like things because we choose them. And we don’t like things that we don’t choose.
“I chose this, so I have to like it. I didn’t choose that other thing so it doesn’t have to be that good. Adults subconsciously draw these conclusions, ”said co-author Lisa Feigenson, a cognitive scientist with Johns Hopkins specializing in child development. “We justify our choice after the fact.”
People assume they choose things they like. However, research has shown that this is sometimes backwards: we like things because we choose them. And we don’t like things that we don’t choose. Photo credit: Will Kirk / Johns Hopkins University
This makes sense for adults in a consumer culture who have to make arbitrary choices every day, from brands of toothpaste to brands of cars to jeans styles. The question for Feigenson and Silver was when exactly would people start doing it? So they turned to babies who don’t have many options. As Feigenson puts it, they are “a perfect window into the origin of this trend”.
The team brought babies 10 to 20 months old to the lab and gave them a selection of objects to play with: two equally bright and colorful soft blocks.
They set each block wide apart so the babies had to crawl to one or the other – a random choice.
After the baby chose one of the toys, the researchers took it away and came back with a new option. The babies could then choose from toys they hadn’t played with for the first time or from a brand new toy.
“The babies reliably chose to play with the new item instead of the one they hadn’t previously selected, as if they were saying, ‘Hmm, I didn’t pick this item last time, I think it got me Feigenson said. “That’s the core phenomenon. Adults will like less what they didn’t choose, even if they had no real preference at all. And yet babies don’t prefer the unselected object.”
In subsequent experiments, the phenomenon completely disappeared when the researchers instead chose which toy the baby would play with. If you take away the element of choice, Feigenson said, the phenomenon disappears.
“They really don’t choose based on novelty or intrinsic preference,” said Silver. “I find it really surprising. We wouldn’t expect infants to make such methodological decisions. ”
To further study the evolution of choice in babies, the lab will next look at the idea of ”choice overload”. Choices are good for adults, but too many choices can be a problem. So the lab will try to see if the same applies to babies.
Reference: October 2, 2020, Psychological science.
