The choice of flavor may be up to you, but the number of scoops will depend on what your companion gets. Zamurovic Photography/Shutterstock.comImagine you’re dining out at a casual restaurant with some friends. After looking over the menu, you decide to order the steak. But then, after a dinner companion orders a salad for their main course, you declare: “I’ll have the salad too.” This kind of situation – making choices that you probably otherwise wouldn’t make were you alone – probably happens more often than you think in a wide variety of settings, from eating out to shopping and even donating to charity. And it’s not just a matter of you suddenly realizing the salad sounds more appetizing. Prior research has shown people have a tendency to mimic the choices and behaviors of others. But other work suggests people also want to do the exact opposite to signal their uniqueness in a group by making a different choice from others. As scholars who examine consumer behavior, we wanted to resolve this discrepancy: What makes people more likely to copy others’ behavior, and what leads them to do their own thing? A social signal We developed a theory that how and why people match or mimic others’ choices depends a lot on the attributes of the thing being selected. Choices have what we call “ordinal” attributes that can be ranked objectively – such as size or price – as well as “nominal” attributes that are not as easily ranked – such as flavor or shape. We hypothesized that ordinal attributes have more social influence, alerting others to what may be seen as “appropriate” in a given context. Nominal attributes, on the other hand, would seem to be understood as a reflection of one’s personal preferences. So we performed 11 studies to test our theory. Size may be social, but flavor remains a personal choice. AP Photo/Toby Talbot One scoop or two In one study conducted with 190 undergraduate students, we told participants that they were on their way to an ice cream parlor with a friend to get a cone. We then told our would-be ice cream consumers that their companion was getting either one scoop of vanilla, one scoop of chocolate, two scoops of vanilla or two scoops of chocolate. We then asked participants what they wanted to order. We found that people were much more likely to order the same size as their companion but not the same flavor. The participants seemed to interpret the number of scoops the companion ordered as an indication of what’s appropriate. For example, ordering two scoops might signal “permission” to indulge or seem the more financially savvy – if less healthy – choice, since it usually costs only marginally more than one. Or a single scoop might suggest “let’s enjoy some ice cream – but not too much.” The choice of chocolate or vanilla, on the other hand, is readily understood as a personal preference and thus signals nothing about which is better or more appropriate. I like vanilla, you like chocolate – everyone’s happy. We also asked participants to rate how important avoiding social discomfort was in their decision. Those who ordered the same number of scoops as their companion rated it as more important than those who picked a different amount. Study participants gave the same amounts to charities as their peers, but they weren’t swayed on whether to give to elephants or polar bears. LunaseeStudios/Shutterstock.com Examining other contexts In the other studies, we replicated our results using different products, in various settings and with a variety of ordinal and nominal attributes. For example, in another experiment, we gave participants US Healthy choices are neither good or bad; only thinking makes them so https://theconversation.com/healthy-choices-are-neither-good-or-bad-only-thinking-makes-them-so-82048 Sat, 29 May 2021 16:33:29 +0000 tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82048 Are healthy behaviors virtuous (and unhealthy ones sinful), or are they just like any other choice? Here's how we could likely improve our health if we viewed choice differently. Elliot Berkman, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Oregon Healthy choices are more complicated than a devil-angel contest suggests. Serggod/Shutterstock.comDoing healthy things can feel like a battle between the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. The devil impels me to order the bacon burger for lunch, but the angel nudges my hand toward the salad. This dichotomy goes way back in Western thought. Plato likened the process of making such choices to the charioteer of the soul commanding two horses, one “noble” and the other wicked. This allegory echoes throughout history in various forms. Other ready examples include reason versus passion as described by the Greeks, the Judeo-Christian battle between sin and redemption, and Freud’s account of the psyche’s superego and id. Our intuitions about healthy behaviors are deeply shaped by this history. Plus, hard choices simply feel like we are being pulled in two directions. Getting to the root causes of healthy behaviors is important to science because they are a big part of individual and public health. The leading causes of death in the United States – cancer, heart disease and respiratory illness, among others – are all caused at least in part by our behavior. As a society, we could reduce the onset of these afflictions by learning new ways to change our behavior. Despite the intuition, health behaviors are not the result of a battle between two opposing forces. So what are they? My colleagues and I have suggested that they are the same as any other choice. Instead of a battle between two forces, self-control of unhealthy impulses is more like a many-sided negotiation. Various features of each option in a choice get combined, then the total values of the options are compared. This is kind of a fancy version of a “compare the pros and cons” model. Problems with the battle analogy These days, psychologists refer to the dichotomy in Western thought as “dual-process” models of health behavior. Such models come in many varieties, but they share two notable features. First, they describe behavior as a winner-take-all battle between two opposing forces. There is no compromise. Whichever force is stronger dictates behavior. Second, beyond being in opposition to one another, the forces are also inflected with a moral tone, with one being good and the other wicked. The devil impels you to do bad things, the angel advises toward virtuous ones. Psychologists call the warring parties impulse and control, or hot and cold processes. Casting behavior in the stark terms of pros versus cons is intuitive but might not be accurate. After all, our minds contain many more than just two systems for making decisions. As Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.” Plus, people have many ways to choose healthy options that don’t involve a battle. Avoiding a temptation in the first place is effective. If I know that I have trouble not ordering the bacon burger, then I can choose to go to a restaurant that doesn’t have one on the menu. Also effective is fighting fire with fire by getting excited about a healthy option. And being healthy doesn’t need to be moralized. Indulgence can be a good thing, such as when it serves as a reward. Some people even plan indulgence in advance to give themselves a break. In studying healthy choices, scientists have learned that they are more complex than we previously thought. Advantages of thinking of many choices The cheeseburger is not bad. Only thinking makes it so. Michaylovskiy/www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-SA Let’s revisit the burger-vs.-salad example. Sure, the burger tastes good (a “hot” feature) and you know that the salad is healthy (a “cold” feature). But many other features could be relevant, too. Not all of them will