Preferences are not Rational Preference for familiar things i | Human Nature

Preferences are not Rational

Preference for familiar things is based purely on the history of exposure to it, and is not affected by a person’s expressed personal beliefs or attitudes. This holds true even when exposures take place only on the subliminal level, when subjects are completely unaware that they are being presented with a stimulus. “Preferences need no inferences,” meaning that affectionate feeling is not based on reasoned judgement. This is contrary to what most of us might imagine to be the case.

Feelings and thoughts are actually very independent of one another. Feelings not only precede thoughts during a person’s complex response to a stimulus, but are actually the most powerful determinants of a person’s attitudes and decisions contrary to what we may believe, it is not reason and logic that guide our decisions; in fact, we make fast, instinctive, emotion-based decisions before we have even had a chance to consider the choice cognitively—we make judgments without information. If this is true, it follows that our logical reasoning merely justifies and rationalizes the decisions we have already made, rather than actually serving to inform the choice in the first place.

“Affect is always present as a companion to thought, whereas the converse is not true for cognition.” We can never think about something without a feeling attached; as e.g., we do not just see “a house,” we see “a handsome house” or “a pretentious house.” Every perception we have contains some affect or feeling, and we have to be conscious of that, since this helps in making decisions, especially long-terms decision e.g. partners and in relationships, or purchasing properties.

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