Thinking about misaligned behavior
When we say one thing, but end up doing another
Why do we say one thing and end up doing another?
The Why Behind Our Misaligned Behavior
This one was inspired by a video I watched the other day. It was a beauty video (because my guilty pleasure is watching make up videos) by Allana Davison. It was this video if you’re interested — she reviews the brand Laura Mercier here, and she talks about how strange it is that despite stating in her previous video that she’d prefer to use brands that stick with their original personalities and not follow makeup trends, in reality her behavior doesn’t really reflect that statement. Although this brand, according to her, doesn’t follow trends and has continued to develop their original products instead, it essentially hasn’t been as effective at grabbing her attention as some of the other brands.
While this makeup example might not be the most applicable to everyone… it does get you thinking. Academics like to refer to this as stated preferences versus revealed preferences. Essentially what it means is that we often say we want certain things, but our behavior says another. When these stated preferences and revealed preferences don’t align, it begs the question of why this happens.
We don’t realize how much our emotions influence our judgment
It’s hard for us to think ahead, and we never realize how much of an impact our emotions can have on our decisions. As much as I love yoga, it’s still so hard most days to get out of bed in the morning at 6am.. Especially the past week as I was just getting over my post-jab fever.. it became extra hard to get out of bed and much easier to make excuses. When you’re in the moment, the thrill of a new thing and shiny, fancy packaging will have a big impact on your final decision. The amount of times I’ve bought something because of the cute packaging… I feel so sorry for my wallet.
We underestimate the power of instant gratification
In the world of Behavioural Science, this is known as hyperbolic discounting. At this point, lots of studies have been done to show that when we’re being offered something now versus something that’s slightly bigger a little bit later, we’re more likely to choose that smaller thing now because we can have it now. Am I not making sense? Let’s give it some tangible values. Most people, if asked whether they want £50 now or £60 in a month, will be more likely to choose £50 now. Interestingly though, if the question is £50 in a year or £60 in a year and a month, most people will choose to wait a month to get £60. It is slightly confusing because technically, the two scenarios are exactly the same — you have to wait a month to get the bigger reward. But the power of instant gratification is so strong that if you can own something now, it can affect and skew your judgment so much that you might end up choosing the more irrational option.
Essentially, our answers often come from the more rational part of our brain
All these findings suggest that when we answer a question about our behavior, we often engage the more rational part of our brain. Daniel Kahneman, the Godfather of Behavioural Economics, refers to the fast, emotional, and more irrational part of our brain as System 1; and the slow, more reflective part of our brain as System 2. System 2 knows that it’s good for our health to stop eating so much biscuits after dinner, but when we’re in the moment System 1 often takes over and decides to eat biscuits anyway.
Since my first encounter with Behavioural Science (which is about 5–6 years ago now), it still amazes me how much I fall prey to the same biases over and over again despite knowing about it — and talking about it for a living!
I write a weekly newsletter about The Why Behind everyday life, discussing the Behavioural Science and design of our day-to-day experiences. If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, you can continue getting interesting content every Sunday by clicking on this link. Plus, you get recommendations for more inspiring things to read and useful websites and apps!
