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Professional Development
  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 11/26/2012 • 0 Comments

    Why Piecemeal Info is Bad

    How often do you release information about your meeting or event by piecemeal? Or do you wait until everything is ready before letting attendees know the details? 

    If you're in the piecemeal category, you could be doing yourself—and your event—a disservice. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, consumers may be less satisfied with the choices they make if their options are presented one at a time rather than all at once.

    “Sequentially presented choices create uncertainty. Consumers know that alternatives will become available in the future, but not what those alternatives will be. So there is always the possibility that a better option could later be available,” wrote authors Cassie Mogilner (Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania), Baba Shiv (Stanford University) and Sheena Iyengar (Columbia University).

    Many decisions—such as a book at a store, an entrée at a restaurant or a pair of shoes—involve choosing from options presented all at once. However, many important decisions—such as choosing a job, a home or even who to marry—involve options presented one at a time. 

    In a series of experiments, consumers presented with options one at a time ended up less satisfied with, and ultimately less committed to, their choices than those presented with their options all at once. Consumers presented with their options all at once tended to remain focused on the current set of options and focused on comparing them against each other, whereas those presented with their options one at a time tended to imagine a better option, hoping it would eventually become available. This feeling of hope undermined how they later experienced their choice, resulting in lower satisfaction and commitment levels.

    “The primary difference between sequentially and simultaneously presented options is the presence of alternatives," the authors wrote. "Consumer satisfaction with a chosen option depends less on its objective merits, and more on how it compares to alternatives—real or imagined. Enjoying the most satisfaction from our choices might require being willing to give up the eternal quest for the best."

    What are your thoughts about the way options are presented and overall satisfaction? 

    (Story materials from The University of Chicago Press.)



  • Posted by Jason Hensel at
    12:00AM 08/16/2012 • 2 Comments

    Feedback Can Be Futile

    People who give positive encouragement and constructive criticism could be wasting their breath according to the latest research from a psychology expert at Queen Mary, University of London.

    The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, found that when people received either positive or negative feedback about their performance on complex decision-making tasks, it made their decision making worse.

    “The kind of task people had to perform was difficult and demanding," said Dr. Magda Osman, the study's author. "So, when people received positive or negative feedback, it overloaded them with too much information and distracted them from making a good decision.

    “We found that people’s performance got worse when they had to make sense of the feedback they were given while also performing the main task," Osman continued. “The role of feedback is over emphasized. People typically think that any form of feedback should improve performance in many tasks, and the more frequently it is given, the better performance will be. However, what needs to be considered is how complex the task is in the first place, because this will determine how much feedback will actually interfere with rather than facilitate performance.”

    The study involved approximately100 people who were given the task of choosing how best to either predict or control the state of health of a baby, revealing that feedback can play a negative role in a particularly complex decision-making scenario.

    However, Osman says this type of finding can be generalized and applied to a variety of other complex situations.

    “The introduction of smart energy meters into the home to monitor the amount of energy you’re consuming seems like a nice ‘green’ idea to help you consume less energy, but the complexity of the feedback people receive may not necessarily help them to reduce their energy consumption,” Osman said. “If the energy meter keeps changing and people are unable to track what appliances are on, how could they possibly learn how to lower their energy consumption?

    “People are already being bombarded with high levels of complex information with the influx of new technology into our lives and the increasing reliance on information from the smorgasbord of apps we have at our fingertips," Osman continued. "It is bound to take its toll on our ability to make good choices in difficult decision-making situations.”

    Osman warns that people in management positions need to be aware of the type of feedback they are providing to their staff.

    “We have shown that feedback really doesn’t help people who are making complex decisions," Osman said. "People in management positions need to give their staff more time to analyse and evaluate things in detail when dealing with difficult situations so they can come up with solutions without any distractions in order to get the best out of them.”

    Osman added that her findings disagree with Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman, who writes in his popular book Thinking, Fast and Slow that feedback is good, and is also at odds with the authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein whose book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness was named "Best Book of the Year" by The Economist.

    “My work shows that feedback alone is not enough to ensure success in decision making," Osman said. "I may not be popular for my research into the role of feedback in complex decision-making tasks, but I hope it will make some people think twice about whether they could potentially hinder people’s performance with the feedback they provide."

    (Story materials from Queen Mary, University of London.)