Does conscious thinking always lead to good decisions and satisfactory choices?
According to consumer research, participants who chose their favorite poster among a set of five after thorough contemplation showed less post choice satisfaction than participants who only looked at them briefly. This research was then used to attack the overall belief in the value of conscious deliberation.
The consumer choice of your favorite poster to hang on your wall is a choice to experience the greatest amount of pleasure with the least amount of pain, in other words, amusement. This example is really only a study of choices made for the purpose of amusement and doesn’t reveal much beyond that.
Our characterological disposition (POF 9-3) gives us an immediate feeling reaction of pleasure or pain based on our past experiences. If we live out of our established character in the pursuit of pleasure then it makes sense that our immediate choice determined by an unthinking pleasure reaction would result in post choice satisfaction.
Our characterological disposition is the more permanent part of our decision making process. The research merely indicates that if our established character finds immediate pleasure from a wall poster it will likely continue to find pleasure in it later. The pure conceptual thinking advocated in The Philosophy of Freedom is free from the influences of our established character.
Amusement
(POF 13-10) If it is only a question whether, after the day's work, I am to amuse myself by a game or by light conversation, and if I am totally indifferent to what I do as long as it serves that purpose, then I simply ask myself: What gives me the greatest surplus of pleasure? And I shall most certainly abandon the activity if the scales incline towards the side of displeasure. If we are buying a toy for a child we consider, in selecting, what will give him the greatest happiness. In all other cases we do not base our decision exclusively on the balance of pleasure.
Other explanations for these research results?
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A lot happening here that we are not told about.
Choosing from five. Perhaps the original five were of no real interest to some selectors to start with. So the selected picture doesn't represent the same thing for each individual selector because some other choosers might really like their "favourite". So the results are not comparing like with like.
A long time chooser selecting from five unsatisfactory pictures might be reminded later by the picture of feelings of having consented to put their name to an image they didn't really like just for the sake of participating in the experiment.(big sentence!)
Were the choosers choosing pictures to "hang on their walls"? If so which walls? Who else would see their choices? Do the chooser always choose THEIR own favourites, or do they tacitly selct for others they know might see the pictures? Any post choice measure of later satisfaction must take into account the potential reaction of others for whome the chooser might have selected.
This experiment souds like a "whoopee guys,lets be intuitive cos Big Daddy Science says so" school of marketing junk.