THE “CHOICE BLINDNESS” EFFECT: CHALLENGING INTROSPECTION, INTENTION AND CHOICE

The “Choice blindness” is the term Johansson et al. introduced in order to name an experimental situation in which participants do not notice that their intended choice is mismatched with the alternative they did not choose; nevertheless, they introspectively derived and offered reasons for their manipulated choices. The “Choice blindness” effect has several important features, such as not noticing the replacement of the selected object, confabulation and change in preference, which should be addressed in an attempt to explain it. The established effect proved to be robust and was replicated in numerous studies in which objections to previous studies and offered explanations were addressed. In order to explain the effect, the researchers referred to insufficient introspection and the blindness of the decision processes, as well as the underestimation of the influence of environmental and situational factors. At present there is no explanation or consensus about mechanisms behind the observed effect. The research method introduced by Johansson et al. represents a valuable tool for exploring the field of psychology of perception and cognitive psychology, and even clinical psychology and attitude research. However, there are still a lot of questions about the “Choice blindness” which should be answered.