Excessive Responsiveness to Co-occurring Yet Irrelevant Features
Affective responses to an object or event can be strongly influenced by contextually irrelevant features that do not affect actual enjoyment, leading to a mismatch between liking and subsequent hedonic experience. This bias is evident in marketing (e.g., beer paired with appealing images) and biological preferences (e.g., female zebra finches preferring artificially crested males).
THE IDEA
Excessive Responsiveness to Co-occurring Yet Irrelevant Features
Affective responses to a particular object or event may be strongly influenced by contextual features that do not influence the actual enjoyment it provides. As marketers well know, pairing beer with images of camp fires or trout streams or attractive women may enhance consumers’ affective response to it. However, to the extent that these contextual features either do not actually enhance the enjoyment of beer or are not present when the beer is consumed, affective response (liking) is divorced from subsequent hedonic response (enjoyment).
Evaluations made by other animals may also be susceptible to idiosyncratic features that do not correspond to the quality of outcomes. For example, female zebra finches strongly prefer to mate with male finches whose heads are artificially adorned with crests of white feathers (Burley, cited in Angier, 1999). In fact, the preference is so strong that these curious crested males are permitted liberties not normally enjoyed (e.g., shirking on nest-building responsibilities, mating with other females who are eager for their services). Because these artificial crests resemble nothing that finches ordinarily possess, the usual evolutionary story breaks down, as it is unclear why the crested finches should be thought to bear superior finch genes when they are not supposed to have a crest in the first place. Similar results were found with red leg bands (but not white ones). The source of such aesthetic preferences remains a mystery, and the only “explanation” is the speculation that the white hats or red socks co-opt and arouse some neurophysiological pathway that exists for some other unknown purpose.
When the relevant currency is experienced utility rather than reproductive success, the standards for “rational” choice may be more permissive. If we prefer mates with large breasts or sideburns or flat stomachs, we may regard our preferences as their own justification. Or not. Mismatches might still exist between the degree to which a feature excites our affective response at the moment of decision and its eventual importance to our overall satisfaction. Some features (e.g. a sexy voice) may be more durable and important sources of enjoyment than others that are initially more affect-inducing. The extent to which reliance on our affective responses serves our interests is an open question. It may be a better guide for jams than for cars, and better for posters than for books. Often, the validity of our affective response depends on a normative judgment about the types of utility that ought to count. The answer is not always straightforward: Do charismatic students deserve higher class participation grades (or not)? Is it wrong to be especially concerned about animals that are cute (or not)? Is it irrational to pay more for water that comes in a snazzy bottle (or not)?
The correspondence between affective evaluation and subsequent enjoyment may also be degraded by the influence of transient physiological states. Read and van Leeuwen (1998) found that hungry people were more likely to select a caloric snack for consumption the following week, although current hunger level is irrelevant with respect to the type of snack that will taste best then. Correspondingly, affective responses may provide an insufficient motivation if the contextual features that excite both affective and hedonic responses are not present now, but will be present later. Loewenstein (1996, p. 287) speculates that declining sexual activity in married couples may occur despite constant enjoyment of the sex itself, because the pleasures of sex cannot be appreciated from a “cold” state that begins to prevail once proximity alone ceases to be sufficiently arousing. He suggests that having sex only when we feel like it (choosing by liking) may be a less adequate guideline than an equally simple rule like: “Have sex nightly, regardless of immediate desire.” For further discussion of failures to predict changes in preference brought about by changes in arousal or circumstance, see Loewenstein and Adler (1995), Loewenstein, Nagin, and Paternoster (1997), Loewenstein, Prelec, and Shatto (1998).
It is unclear whether prevailing affective states bias choices because people overestimate the durability of this state (e.g., currently hungry people erroneously believe they will be equally hungry in the future) or because people are unable to disregard feelings they “know” to be irrelevant – much as they are unable to ignore obviously irrelevant anchors in quantity judgments. Perhaps, hedonic predictions are first anchored on the emotion one feels while contemplating the future outcome and then adjusted to reflect the recognition that intervening events will alter future enjoyment.
When to use it
Marketing: designing advertisements that pair products with attractive but irrelevant imagery to boost immediate appeal.
Personal finance: recognizing when temporary moods (e.g., after a bad day) lead to impulsive purchases that don't provide lasting satisfaction.
Distinguishing the features that attract you to a partner from those that matter to your enjoyment of the relationship over time.
Decision-making under uncertainty: checking whether current visceral states (hunger, arousal) are biasing predictions of future preferences.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Beer and Contextual Images
Marketers pair beer with camp fires, trout streams, or attractive people to increase its appeal. If those associations are absent during consumption or do not improve the experience, the initial attraction may exceed the later enjoyment.
Zebra Finch Mating Preference
In the study described, female zebra finches preferred males with artificial white-feather crests and tolerated less nest-building effort from them. Because the adornment was artificial, the preference did not by itself show that it signaled superior genetic quality.
Hunger and Snack Selection
Read and van Leeuwen (1998) found that hungry people are more likely to select a caloric snack for the next week, even though current hunger is irrelevant to future taste enjoyment.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a recent purchase you made. Were you influenced by contextual features (such as packaging, ambiance, or advertising) that were irrelevant to the actual enjoyment of the product?
Consider a relationship decision. Did transient emotional states (e.g., feeling lonely or excited) affect your choice of partner, even if those states were not relevant to long-term compatibility?
In a professional setting, how might irrelevant factors like the appearance of a presentation or the charisma of a speaker affect your evaluation of the content?
Often confused with
References
- Angier on Burley's finch study — Angier, N. (1999)
- Read and van Leeuwen (1998) study on hunger and snack selection — Read, D. & van Leeuwen, B. (1998)
- Loewenstein (1996) on sexual activity decline — Loewenstein, G. (1996)
- Loewenstein and Adler (1995) on preference changes — Loewenstein, G. & Adler, D. (1995)
- Loewenstein, Nagin, and Paternoster (1997) on preference changes — Loewenstein, G., Nagin, D., & Paternoster, R. (1997)
- Loewenstein, Prelec, and Shatto (1998) on preference changes — Loewenstein, G., Prelec, D., & Shatto, C. (1998)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Heuristics and Biases The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment (Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, Daniel Kahneman)