← all facts
dissonance
Your confidence in a decision increases after you act.
Post-decision dissonance reduction causes people to rate their chosen option as significantly better than an rejected alternative immediately after making the choice.
Participants were asked to rank household items. Once forced to choose between two similarly rated items, they suddenly devalued the rejected option to resolve their internal conflict.
You do not choose because you like it; you like it because you chose it.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Jack Brehm, 1956
- What the check found
- The 1956 study by Jack Brehm is the foundational work for post-decision dissonance and confirms that participants re-evaluated options to increase the perceived gap between chosen and rejected alternatives.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.