The Paradoxical Consequences of Choice: Often Good for the Individual, Perhaps Less So for Society?

Madan, Shilpa; Nanakdewa, Kevin; Savani, Krishna; Markus, Hazel Rose

doi:10.1177/0963721419885988

Cited by 10 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Hence, while beneficial for the individual, the increased salience of choice and the sense of independence that tracks it may have adverse consequences for society. Given the proliferation of choice in our lives and its potentially divergent consequences for the individual and the society, there is a pressing need for more research on the broad ramifications of choice (14).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, in many of these studies, the mechanism explaining the effect of choice is assumed to be a sense of independence (for an overview, see ref. 14). Yet none of the studies have directly assessed this mechanism.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We use the term "unmarked" because, although the proliferation of choice has been well documented (e.g., refs. 6 and 7), the consequences of the mere salience of choice on people's psychological processes and behaviors have been underappreciated in the literature (14).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The salience of choice fuels independence: Implications for self-perception, cognition, and behavior

Nanakdewa

Madan

Savani

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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More than ever before, people across the world are exposed to ideas of choice and have opportunities to make choices. What are the consequences of this rapidly expanding exposure to the ideas and practice of choice? The current research investigated an unexamined and potentially powerful consequence of this salience of choice: an awareness and experience of independence. Four studies (n = 1,288) across three cultural contexts known to differ in both the salience of choice and the cultural emphasis on independence (the United States, Singapore, and India) provided converging evidence of a link between the salience of choice and independence. Singaporean students who recalled choices rather than actions represented themselves as larger than their peers (study 1). Conceptually replicating this finding, study 2 found that Americans who recalled choices rather than actions rated themselves as physically stronger. In a word/nonword lexical decision task (study 3), Singaporean students who recalled choices rather than actions were quicker at identifying independence-related words, but not neutral or interdependence-related words. Americans, Singaporeans, and Indians all indicated that when working in an organization that emphasized choice, they would be more likely to express their opinions. Similarly, Americans, Singaporeans, and Indians reported a preference for working in such an organization (studies 4a and 4b). The findings suggest that the salience of personal choice may drive an awareness and experience of independence even in contexts where, unlike in the United States, independence has not been the predominant ethos. Choice may be an unmarked and proximate mechanism of cultural change and growing global individualism.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

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The salience of choice fuels independence: Implications for self-perception, cognition, and behavior

Nanakdewa

Madan

Savani

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…A choice is a deliberate action that likely reflects the actor's preferences, intentions, and motives. A tendency to view one's own and others' actions as a matter of choice is known as a choice mindset (Madan et al, 2020). Being in a choice mindset changes how individuals think, feel, and act.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the many consequences of a choice mindset (Madan et al, 2020), it is crucial to understand what leads people to adopt one. In this research, we investigate a novel antecedent of a choice mindset: a person's power.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Power Increases Perceptions of Others’ Choices, Leading People to Blame Others More

Yin

Savani

Smith

2021

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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Under what circumstances do people adopt a choice mindset? Three studies (two preregistered) tested whether higher power leads people to construe others as having more choice. When power was either measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Studies 2 and 3), high-power perceivers viewed others, even low-power others (Study 3), as having more choice than did low-power perceivers. Consequently, high-power individuals blamed others more for poor performance (Studies 1–3), and were more likely to punish them (Studies 1 and 2). The findings document a direct link between power and choice by showing that the psychological consequences of a choice mindset (i.e., greater blame) can be evoked by power and that effects of power (e.g., on blame) can be mediated by perceptions of choice.

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Fake smiles. Customer reactions to employees’ display inauthenticity and choice restrictions

Pham

Lechner

Mathmann

2022

Psychology and Marketing

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Frontline employees’ fake smiles (i.e., positive emotion display inauthenticity) frequently occur despite firms’ efforts to ensure real smiles in service delivery. Previous research on the effects of display inauthenticity on customers reveals considerable heterogeneity. Attempts to resolve this have largely been limited to stable and dispositional factors, which often escape managerial control. The present research investigates the impacts of display inauthenticity, choice restrictions, and their interaction on service performance. Choice restrictions may buffer inauthenticity effects as demonstrated by results from three factorial experiments in different contexts (e.g., restrictions of service provider choice in predelivery in Study 1 and in‐store choice restrictions during service delivery in Studies 2 and 3). Frontline employees’ display inauthenticity negatively affects service performance only if customers are subjected to low but not high choice restrictions. The interaction effect is explained by customers’ interdependent self‐construal and is generalizable to actual spending behaviors. Our findings inform managers about the interplay of increasingly common inauthenticity and choice restrictions due to market shocks such as COVID‐19 and provide insights into managerial interventions that can be used to mitigate the effects of inauthenticity on customers.

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The Paradoxical Consequences of Choice: Often Good for the Individual, Perhaps Less So for Society?

Cited by 10 publications

References 28 publications

The salience of choice fuels independence: Implications for self-perception, cognition, and behavior

The salience of choice fuels independence: Implications for self-perception, cognition, and behavior

Power Increases Perceptions of Others’ Choices, Leading People to Blame Others More

Fake smiles. Customer reactions to employees’ display inauthenticity and choice restrictions

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