Bharat Ganesh Shenoy,
Organizational Behavior PhD
Dissertation Chair: Prof. J. Polzer
Are Virtuous Choices Especially Valued Once Possessed?
Many of the decisions that we make in our daily lives involve minor, but repeated,
choices. Examples of such decisions include choosing whether to have a sugary snack bar or
fresh fruit for breakfast, whether to take the elevator or the stairs to the office, and whether to
remain a couch potato or visit the gym at the end of the day. In isolation, these minor decisions
have minor consequences. However, when these minor consequences are compounded over a
period of months or years, the results can be life-changing.
A notable characteristic of these minor decisions is that they frequently involve choosing
between an indulgent choice (i.e., one which provides immediate gratification) and a virtuous
choice (i.e., one which fulfills a moral obligation or duty). Decision researchers have discovered
that our pre-decisional preferences (i.e., our preferences before making a decision) are
characterized by a marked tendency to favor indulgent choices over virtuous alternatives.
However, making decisions involves predicting what our post-decisional preferences (i.e., our
preferences after making a decision) will be, when the consequences of the choice that we made
are actually experienced. Much less is known about our post-decisional preferences for
indulgent and virtuous choices.
One of the major assumptions of rational choice theory is that our preferences are stable
over time. However, some of the most famous experiments in 20th century social psychology
(for example, those highlighting cognitive dissonance, self-perception, and the endowment
effect) demonstrate that people's preferences can change after an event. These experiments
imply that predicting our post-decisional preferences may not be as straightforward as we might
have first thought. Using the endowment effect as an exemplar, this thesis investigates the idea
that people make greater errors in predicting their post-decisional preferences for virtuous
choices than for comparable indulgent choices, with a greater potential for subsequent adverse
consequences. It also explores the role that cognition in general, and mindfulness in particular,
plays in causing this phenomenon.
Four studies - using book vouchers, food coupons, actual books, and coupons for minimassages
and mini-physicals - demonstrate a larger endowment effect for virtuous choices than
indulgent alternatives, suggesting that people do indeed find it harder to predict their postdecisional
preferences for virtuous choices. Two further studies investigate the role of
mindfulness in causing this effect. These studies test the predictions that this phenomenon can
be diminished by applying either (a) an attention diversion treatment to people possessing a
virtuous choice, or (b) a mindfulness treatment to people who do not possess a virtuous choice.
The thesis concludes with a discussion of implications and suggestions for further research.
