Distinction Bias: A Psychological Phenomenon Of Decision Making
We all consider ourselves rational people, who like to think coldly when making a certain decision.
However, to what extent are we really capable of objectively evaluating the benefits of choosing one path or another?
Distinction bias is a very common phenomenon that allows us to understand how people behave in our decision-making, in addition to justifying it depending on the context in which we have made it. Let’s dig deeper below.
Distinction bias is the tendency to overestimate the effect of small quantitative differences when comparing different options , whether these are materialized in products, services or, simply, personal decisions. This tendency appears or not depending on whether the comparison of these options is carried out together or, on the contrary, there is no decision and one is experiencing or having something that cannot be modified.
The term was first described in 2004 thanks to the research of Christopher L. Hsee and Jiao Zhang. These researchers observed that people, When we have to choose between a certain product within a wide range of possibilities, we tend to search and find every difference between them , no matter how small and unimportant they may be at first hand. Thus, based on these small details, our preferences lean towards one or another product, service or decision.
During this process we overestimate the degree of happiness that the decision we are making will bring us. We fear that choosing the least suitable or least best will cause us a high degree of discomfort or discomfort, and we also fear that we will regret it in the long term.
However, if we do not have the possibility of choosing between several options, as often happens in life itself, it seems as if we willingly settle. This means that, when we cannot compare an event with others nor do we have the decision-making capacity, the possible differences between other options that we have not been able to enjoy do not seem to matter to us, feeling satisfied with what we already have.
To facilitate the understanding of the distinction bias, it is necessary to explain the two cognitive phenomena that it implies: the comparison mode and the experience mode.
People go into comparison mode when, having several options, we begin to look for all kinds of differences between them. to make sure we make the right decision.
Instead, we find ourselves in experience mode when there is no other option we have been given a certain thing that we cannot change and we have to settle for it, but willingly.
To exemplify both the bias and these two modes, we will see the following case of a man and a gift of apples:
We have a man in front of us who is sitting in front of a table, and we ask him the following question: would you like to eat an apple? The man, upon seeing that he is offered a fruit for free, and without expecting it, responds affirmatively. Then we give him the fruit, which is already a few days old but is still good, and the man begins to eat it very happily.
Now let’s imagine this same situation, only Instead of offering him one apple, we offer him two, and we tell him that he can only choose one of them. It is then that we present both pieces of fruit: the same apple from the previous case, still good but a few days old, and another apple which looks much fresher and more appetizing. The man, after evaluating both pieces of fruit, opts for the freshest apple.
In this second situation, if we asked the man if he thought he would have been happier choosing the apple that didn’t look fresh, he would probably tell us no, that it wouldn’t make much sense to have taken the oldest apple when he could have chosen the best one. .
In the situation where there was only one apple the person would have entered experiential mode , since you do not have to choose between several options. He is simply presented with the apple and invited to eat it. You don’t have to compare it with others that are better or worse.
On the other hand, in the second situation, the man has entered comparison mode. Although both apples were edible, with the same nutritional value, the same breed of vegetable and a long etcetera, the simple fact that one was younger than the other has made the person perceive it as the best of the two. options. By choosing the best of the apples that could have been presented to her, she feels happier than he thinks she would be if she had chosen the one that, for him, must have been the worst.
Real life examples
Marketing works based on distinction bias. If people did not choose to buy what we consider to be better, most of us would choose to buy the cheapest, without caring about such supposedly banal aspects as the color of the product’s packaging, the prestige of the brand behind it, all the extras. which supposedly includes…
We have a clear example of this in the world of electronics. Let’s say we want to buy a television and we find ourselves in a store specialized in this type of appliance. In theory, all the televisions that have been placed next to each other in the store serve the same purpose: watching television channels. However, the prices of these products vary greatly, and the extras of each model are very different from one another.
This is when the time comes to choose the new TV and we can’t decide which one to choose. Logic would tell us to take the cheapest one, since, after all, it will be used for the same thing, regardless of its extras or price. However, We are opting for the most expensive ones, those that look like they are the best on the market and that, in our minds, differ enormously from those that are only worth a little less.
Another example, this much more mundane, is with the world of food. In supermarkets there are sections where you can find both white label cookies and those with a prestigious name behind them. A certain brand of cocoa cookies with a cream interior is well known and seems to be the favorite of many people. However, these same cookies exist in their low-cost format, at half the price, with a very similar flavor.
Although both cookies are practically the same, they taste the same, have the same nutritional values ​​(few, given that cookies are not healthy food) and opting for the cheapest product would be the most logical option, the most expensive brand, twice as much. price, it is the most consumed. The reason why this is done is that, in addition to buying expensive products is seen as synonymous with power, all the marketing behind and the presentation of these cookies helps the more expensive brand.
