In April 2010, researchers at the University of Texas wanted to examine how people make buying decisions and how they support them. In one phase of their study, Raghunathan and Ph.D. student Szu-Chi Huang showed participants two photos - one of a nice looking, plump chicken and the other looking thin and sickly. Participants were told that the plump chicken was a natural chicken, and the thin chicken was genetically engineered.

The researchers informed half of the participants that natural chickens were healthy but less tasty, and genetically engineered chickens were tasty, but less healthy. The other half were told the opposite.

Overwhelmingly, sets of participants expressed a preference for the nice plump chicken… but their justifications were different. 

The first group claimed it was because they valued health above taste, and the second group said it was because taste was more important. Neither group seemed to justify their choice based on how they felt about the chicken’s looks. They felt compelled to justify their emotional choices with non-emotional reasons, to the point that the two groups found completely opposite ways to justify the same decision.

“The technical term is ‘post-hoc rationalization’ and it is found in every aspect of our life, whenever we make decisions. We are ruled by our emotions first, and then we build justifications for our response. You can see this happening in hiring decisions, dating, you name it.” Professor Raghunathan said.

Logic and Reason are Valued, Emotion is Mistrusted

“In our society it is generally not considered justifiable to make a decision purely on an emotional response,” he said. “We want to be considered scientific and rational, so we come up with reasons after the fact to justify our choice.

“This process seems to be happening somewhat unconsciously, people are not really aware they’re coming up with these justifications. What is even more interesting is that people who claim that emotions are not that important, who consider themselves to be really rational, are actually more prone to fall into this trap.”

Ragunathan and Huang believe this is because once someone has denied the possibility of making a decision based on emotion, there is no other option but to come up with justifications. “You paint yourself into a corner,” he claims. “You want to portray yourself as this rational decision maker, but in reality, you’re the one who’s most likely to show post-hoc rationalization.”

If we were really rational beings… ?

Much of what we do is arguable rational, and the way governments and economists see us is as rational thinking machines. To them we are (or should behave) all like Mr Spock clones in a Startrek remake. 
Even HR departments try to build as much rationality into their departments as possible… the Head of Finance is often asked to only see the world in those terms. And the fact is that if Mr.Spock were to run any department, it would be as Finance Director that he would have the best chance for success… at least if he never had to take a risk or deal with staffing issues.

But I think it’s pretty obvious to most of us that we are not first and foremost rational beings. Indeed, today’s financial led crisis probably would not have happened if the bankers testosterone fueled decisions had not been grounded in so-called rationality. Yet logic and value are trusted and we still mistrust emotion.