Common Choices Are Less Common Than You Think

We were both at the same wedding last summer. Only one of us got married. Weddings are fun.

At least one of us learned that planning a wedding is stressful. In part, this is because designing one’s own special day means trying to anticipate the desires of one’s guests. Consider the cake selection. A chocolate and a white cake would be classic offerings. But the couple may wish to change things up by subbing out the white cake for a more unique flavor such as bananas foster. If so, how much of each kind of cake should they order? That is, how many guests will choose the more familiar dessert as opposed to the more unusual one?

If you’re like the participants in our studies, you’re not only likely to get this question wrong but you’re also likely to err in a predictable way. More specifically, you may find yourself with quite a few slices of leftover chocolate cake. No, our own research did not uncover a previously undiscovered aversion to chocolate. Instead, across eight studies and more than 1,400 participants, we documented what we call the commonness fallacy—a tendency to overestimate how much a relatively common option (such as chocolate cake) will be chosen over a relatively unusual but potentially more exciting one (such as bananas foster cake).

Why do people make this mistake? We find that, in predicting what other people will choose, forecasters (those trying to predict what others will choose) lean on how commonly each option has been chosen in the past. From what we see in stores, what we see on restaurant-goers’ plates, and what we have observed at previous weddings, chocolate desserts are everywhere. People eat a lot of them. And on its surface, such information seems relevant. People ignore others’ previous behavior at their peril: Past behavior, as a form of history, repeats itself.

But therein lies a problem. When people choose to eat chocolate cake, they are often constrained by what choices are available. Chocolate cake—like bouquets of roses, cruises to The Bahamas, and Coca-Cola—is commonly available. Bananas foster cake—like bouquets of snapdragons, cruises to The Galápagos, and Izze Sparkling Pomegranate Soda—is not. In other words, chocolate cake’s commonness does not mean that it is usually chosen over bananas foster cake. As a result, looking to people’s past choices to know which of two offerings they will select in the future can be misleading.

Let us be clear what the commonness fallacy does not mean: It is not that people think others always have a preference for common options over unusual ones. We suspect people likely realize that most other people would take a hamburger from an upscale restaurant instead of McDonald’s or a fine Swiss chocolate over a Hershey’s bar. But we do suspect that people would still overestimate just how often the more common option would be selected.

More generally, the commonness fallacy may yield insight into why society can get stuck in an unsatisfactory status quo. As the United States enters an election year, the chorus bemoaning the country’s two-party system is likely to swell. In modern U.S. history, a third-party presidential bid has not seriously gotten off the ground. One possibility is that there simply isn’t much support for such efforts, explaining why the resources have never quite amassed to catapult a third-party campaign into viability. But a second possibility is that people look to other people’s past behavior (that almost 19 in 20 American voters chose one of the two major-party presidential candidates in 2016) to decide who voters will choose in the future. The commonness fallacy can make people pessimistic about change. And when such pessimism tempers enthusiasm and discourages financial support for new options, people will continue to choose what is most prominently placed in front of them.

We observed evidence for the commonness fallacy across a wide range of domains—including forecasting people’s dinner food choices, vacation choices, and birthday celebration choices.  This suggests that the commonness fallacy is a fairly general phenomenon. Furthermore, in a number of studies, we made sure that people didn’t simply think others were more price-sensitive (as common items are often cheaper) than they themselves are.

Instead, the commonness fallacy emerges because people often replace the question “What will people choose?” with “How commonly is this chosen?” Getting people to think not simply about what others would choose but also what their preferences are (that is, what they actually like) reduces reliance on perceived commonness and, in turn, the commonness fallacy. In planning that wedding, our findings suggest that asking yourself, “What percentage of people would be more pleased to receive the chocolate cake or the bananas foster?” may be better than trying to forecast their choice directly. By framing the question this way, you can keep people from being led astray by the commonness of the options and help them focus on more predictive information. Doing so may help make your next wedding a bit more satisfying for your guests.


For Further Reading

Reit, E., & Critcher, C. R. (2020).  The commonness fallacy: Commonly chosen options have less choice appeal than people think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118, 1-21.
 

Emily Reit is a doctoral student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Clayton Critcher is an associate professor of marketing, cognitive science, and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Unpredictable Love

Are you single? Do you use dating apps when looking for a new partner? When using dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, many think they know they find a particular "type" attractive as far as who they are seeking in the dating pool. Our research examined whether this was so. We investigated whether preferences for a particular type of partner are stable or whether they are determined by the situation.

Previous research investigating partner choice has often tried to explain what exactly determines a person's partner preferences, but those studies rarely took more temporary psychological states into account. We propose, however, that people's temporary feelings of uncertainty (such as due to the COVID-19 pandemic or a financial crisis) may affect their partner preferences.

To test our proposition, my co-author Kobe Millet and I conducted four studies to test the extent in which uncertain events (such as COVID-19) influence the types of partners that men and women feel attracted to. We discovered that partner preferences may not be as stable as one might like to think. In times of uncertainty, people seem to seek out partners that fit with stereotypes (women who are tender-looking and caring versus men who are tough-looking and strong), whereas this need becomes less in times of certainty.

Which Facial Features of the Opposite Sex Are More Attractive Under Uncertainty?

In the first study, respondents were asked to imagine a situation in which they felt uncertain (for example, a drop in housing prices due to an economic crisis, or being faced with too many choice options) or certain (such as trust in good education, or assurance of basic services). This task brought feelings of uncertainty to the forefront of people's minds.

They then saw photos of potential dating partners. A professional graphic designer modified the pictures to create for each face a version with tender facial features and a version with tough facial features. For the tender feature faces, the outer facial contour was made less angular, and the tip of the nose, cheeks, and lips were rounded. For the tough feature faces, the nose and chin were made sharper and the jawbone more angular. The respondent then indicated which face they found most attractive and whether they would like to go on a date with that person.

Two photos of the same woman

An example of a female face with tender versus tough facial features

The results showed that under uncertainty, women felt more attracted to men with tougher facial features, whereas men felt more attracted to women with more tender facial features. However, this gender difference disappeared when people felt—men and women found both partners equally attractive regardless of facial structure.

To gain confidence in these findings, we used in the next study a morphing technique to create images of the same face that gradually changed from extremely tender to extremely tough. This time we asked participants to either think about COVID-19 and how it made them feel uncertain or about a regular day in their lives. Even with the novel method, our results were the same, such that when thinking about COVID-19 uncertainty, male respondents felt more attracted to the female with more tender features, whereas female respondents to the male with tougher features. And, again, this preference disappeared when people thought of a regular day.

Female and male face gradually changing from very tender to very tough facial features, by using a morphing technique

Why Are There Gender Differences in Partner Preference Under Uncertainty?

Two subsequent studies also revealed that in uncertain times, men and women reported being more attracted to a partner with tender or tough features because they related these facial features to stereotypical gender roles. While women with tender features were thought to be a caring type, men with hard features were believed to be stronger. Apparently, stereotypes play a greater role in mate selection during uncertain times.

External and unpredictable events, such as a climate disaster or the corona pandemic, create a lot of uncertainty. We often feel the urge to seek certainty during times such as these. We do this partly by looking for order and structure. Using stereotypes makes us feel like we have more certainty about the world, by quickly categorizing people into groups. Conversely, people may fall back less on stereotypical gender roles in times and places where they feel more secure and certain.

These insights are not only important to better understand people's partner preferences, but are also practically applicable. For example, perhaps candidates on dating sites can adjust how to present themselves in uncertain times, by accentuating tender or tougher features. In addition, a female model with tender, softer features (or a male model with tough, harder features) might be better used in product commercials in times of crisis.

Thus, when you believe that you feel attracted to the same types of guys or gals when you are looking for a date, you may be wrong. In uncertain times you may end up with a much more stereotypical date than when times are more predictable.


For Further Reading

Van Horen, F., & Millet, K. (2022). Unpredictable love? How uncertainty influences partner preferences. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2854


Femke van Horen is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her research interests include environmental uncertainty, sustainability, and the effectiveness of product imitation strategies.

Kobe Millet is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research interests include consumer psychology, environmentally (un)friendly decision-making, and prosocial behavior.