Comments on: At the Heart of Attraction Lies Confusion: Choice Blindness

By: Kat

Kat — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:22:58 +0000

Thanks PsyBlog, very, very important study. I have read that in a large number of cases where a conviction has been exonerated by DNA evidence that the original conviction was based primarily on eye witness testimony.

By: Tom Byrne

Tom Byrne — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:45:00 +0000

What if there's something systematically different between the 13 who caught on? Maybe they are smart enough to justify the real reason they like a person just as they were smart enough to catch on to the experiment.

By: Jacquie

Jacquie — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:09:00 +0000

This experiment doeasn't apear to say much. It reminds me of several things. One, like Sam said, cognitive dissonance. Two, hindsight bias. If a result is endorsed by a scientific experiment, whether it was a reliable, valuable experiment or not, people take it at face value and think that something they would never have even thought of is commonplace and obvious.

And you can see that only thirteen of the participats went against the grain. If this experiment were replicated, the reasearcher would probably expect that the majority, no matter what picture they're given, will BS a reason why they're attracted to the face in front of them. I don't think that proves attraction or that attraction can't be described;I think it's a lovely example of how people can rationalize just about anything.

By: BigWhiteWall

BigWhiteWall — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:10:00 +0000

I dont think you can study 'attraction' based on only one sense - sight... when someone is attracted to another person, all senses are involved - particularly smell.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:39:00 +0000

This points to the difference (and lack of correspondence) between cogntive and affective (emotional) reactions. Psychologists have long studied cognitive performance which maybe more accessible than affective reactions (because we can verbalize one but not the other).

By: Alan Coady

Alan Coady — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:32:00 +0000

Do you think that some people would simply be too embarrassed to describe what they found attractive lest it make them sound like the kind of person who could easily objectify others?

By: SAM

SAM — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:57:00 +0000

This reminds me a bit of cognitive dissonance: the way in which people try to justify their preferences: either explaining why this new choice is the best one, using arguments for their real one's choice; either creating new explanations, eventhough their choice was another!

After all, Festinger's model was possyble to be applied in other fields...

PS: Have a nice year!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 20:09:00 +0000

Very interesting study, but the results really are ambiguous.

Is 13% really the number of participants that spotted the trick, or just the number that reported spotting the trick? I would go for the latter. Especially if the experimenters asked the questions after the participants made their “forced” justification and have submitted to authority.

Even if we take that 13% as a real number, isn’t it a clue, that the presented faces were so similar or so “average” that participants didn’t remember their choice afterwards? I mean, the thing about really attractive faces is that they STAND OUT (subjectively) from the crowd. For me, if you cannot remember whether you just saw the face or not is a clear indicator that this face wasn’t attractive.

Ps. Great blog :)