Are virtuous choices especially valued once possessed?
By: by Bharat Ganesh Shenoy
Published: 2008
Language: eng
Number of pages: 104
Description: 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 20 th 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 1 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 mini-massages 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 post-decisional 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. 1 The endowment effect is the label applied to the phenomenon of people owning a commodity (such as a coffee mug) valuing it more than others who do not.
Notes: "September 2008."

Thesis (Ph.D., Joint Doctoral Program in Organizational Behavior)--Harvard University, 2008.

Includes bibliographical references.