One doctor friend told me that he was certain he had gotten into the top-rated medical school he’d attended for only one reason: he had clicked with one of the professors who’d interviewed him; the man’s parents, like his, had immigrated from a certain town in Greece. After matriculating at the school he got to know that professor, who maintained that my friend’s scores, grades, and character—the criteria demanded by social norms—were the reasons their interview had gone so well. But my friend’s scores and grades were below that school’s average, and he still believes it was their shared family origin that really influenced the professor.
To explore why some people get the job and others don’t, and whether those doing the hiring are aware of what drove their choices, researchers recruited 128 volunteers. Each subject—all of them female—was asked to study and assess an in-depth portfolio describing a woman applying for a job as a counselor in a crisis intervention center. The documents included a letter of recommendation and a detailed report of an interview the applicant had had with the center’s director. After studying the portfolio, subjects were asked several questions regarding the applicant’s qualifications, including How intelligent do you think she is? How flexible? How sympathetic would she be toward clients’ problems? How much do you like her?
The key to the study is that the information given to different subjects differed in a number of details. For example, some subjects read portfolios showing that the applicant had finished second in her class in high school and was now an honor student in college, while others read that she had not yet decided whether to go to college; some saw a mention of the fact that the applicant was quite attractive, others learned nothing about her appearance; some read in the center director’s report that the applicant had spilled a cup of coffee on the director’s desk, while others saw no mention of such an incident; and some portfolios indicated that the applicant had been in a serious automobile accident, while others didn’t. Some subjects were told they’d later meet the applicant, while others were not. These variable elements were shuffled in all possible combinations to create dozens of distinct scenarios. By studying the correlation of the facts the subjects were exposed to, and the judgments they made, researchers could compute mathematically the influence of each piece of information on the subjects’ assessments. Their goal was to compare the actual influence of each factor to the subjects’ perception of each factor’s influence, and also to the predictions of outside observers who didn’t know the subjects.
In order to understand what the subjects thought influenced them, after assessing the applicant, the subjects were polled with regard to each question: Did you judge the applicant’s intelligence by her academic credentials? Were you swayed in your assessment of her likability by her physical attractiveness? Did the fact that she spilled a cup of coffee over the interviewer’s desk affect your assessment of how sympathetic she’d be? And so on. Also, in order to find out what an outside observer would guess the influence of each factor would be, another group of volunteers (“outsiders”) were recruited; they were not shown the portfolios but were simply asked to rate how much they thought each factor would influence a person’s judgment.
The facts that were revealed about the applicant had been cleverly chosen. Some, such as the applicant’s high grades, were factors that social norms dictate ought to exert a positive influence on those assessing the job application. The researchers expected both the subjects and the outsiders to name these factors as an influence. Other factors, such as the coffee-spilling incident and the anticipation of later meeting the applicant, were factors that social norms say nothing about in this regard. The researchers therefore expected the outsiders not to recognize their influence. However the researchers had chosen those factors because studies show that, contrary to the expectations dictated by the norms, they do have an effect on our judgment of people: an isolated pratfall such as the coffee-spilling incident tends to increase the likability of a generally competent-seeming person, and the anticipation of meeting an individual tends to improve your assessment of that individual’s personality.28 The crucial question was whether the subjects, upon self-reflection, would do better than the outsiders and recognize that they’d been swayed by those surprisingly influential factors.
When the researchers examined the subjects’ and the outsiders’ answers, they found that they showed impressive agreement, and that both were way off the mark. Both groups appeared to draw their conclusions about which factors were influential from the social-norms explanations, while ignoring the actual reasons. For example, both the subjects and the outsiders said the coffee-spilling incident would not affect their liking of the applicant, yet it had the greatest effect of all the factors. Both groups expected that the academic factor would have a significant effect on their liking the applicant, but its effect was nil. And both groups reported that the expectation of meeting the applicant would have no effect, but it did. In case after case, both groups were wrong about which factors would not affect them and which factors would. As psychological theory had predicted, the subjects had shown no greater insight into themselves than the outsiders had.
EVOLUTION DESIGNED THE human brain not to accurately understand itself but to help us survive. We observe ourselves and the world and make enough sense of things to get along. Some of us, interested in knowing ourselves more deeply—perhaps to make better life decisions, perhaps to live a richer life, perhaps out of curiosity—seek to get past our intuitive ideas of us. We can. We can use our conscious minds to study, to identify, and to pierce our cognitive illusions. By broadening our perspective to take into account how our minds operate, we can achieve a more enlightened view of who we are. But even as we grow to better understand ourselves, we should maintain our appreciation of the fact that, if our mind’s natural view of the world is skewed, it is skewed for a reason.
I walked into an antiques store while on a trip to San Francisco one day, meaning to buy a beautiful vase in the window that was reduced from $100 to just $50. I walked out carrying a $2,500 Persian rug. To be precise, I’m not sure it was a $2,500 Persian rug; all I know is that $2,500 is what I paid for it. I wasn’t in the market for a rug, I wasn’t planning to spend $2,500 on a San Francisco souvenir, and I wasn’t intending to lug home anything bigger than a bread box. I don’t know why I did it, and none of the introspection I performed in the ensuing days turned up anything. But then again, there are no social norms regarding the purchase of Persian rugs on vacation whims. What I do know is that I like the way the rug looks in my dining room. I like it because it makes the room feel cozy, and its colors go well with the table and the walls. Or does it actually make the room look like a breakfast nook in a cheap hotel? Maybe the true reason I like it is that I’m not comfortable thinking that I spent $2,500 on an ugly rug to lay over my beautiful hardwood floor. That realization doesn’t bother me; it gives me a greater appreciation of my unseen partner, my unconscious, always providing the support I need as I walk and stumble my way through life.