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Looking back at an experience through rose-colored glasses
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Journal of Business Research 61 (2008) 1046 – 1052
Looking back at an experience through rose-colored glasses☆ Elizabeth Cowley ⁎ Discipline of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Received 1 March 2007; received in revised form 1 July 2007; accepted 1 September 2007
Abstract The benefit of looking on the bright side of an experience is part of everyday vernacular and is supported empirically in academic research. The proposition here is that when people need to justify repeating an activity, they will try to reconstruct the past as more positive. The positive memory provides them with ammunition to rationalize a desired activity. Participants were offered either an incentive or a disincentive to replay a game. Participants in the disincentive condition who indicated a desire to replay, needed to justify the replay decision more than other participants. These participants were more likely to strategically select moments from a previous experience to construct a positive retrospective evaluation. A plausible alternative explanation for the results, distorting the salient moments of the experience, is tested and rejected. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Memory reconstruction; Motivation; Retrospective evaluation
1. Introduction: Using the past to justify the future Imagine that you would like to do something that has had negative ramifications in the past. For instance, every time you go to a buffet restaurant you eat more than you know you should and leave the restaurant feeling guilty and a little too full. However, at the moment, you are thinking about the variety of flavors and the chance to ‘sample’ different dishes as well as not having to commit to one particular dish. One of the techniques you might use to justify the decision to visit the favored ‘allyou-can-eat’ establishment is to construct positive retrospective evaluations of previous visits to buffet style restaurants. The research presented here investigates whether strategically reflecting on the past such that previous experiences are remembered as more pleasant may be used to support decisions
☆ This research was funded by an Australia Research Council Linkage Grant and the industry linkage partner Russell Corporate Advisory. The author gratefully acknowledges the insightful comments of Donnel Briley, the Behavioral Finance group at the University of Sydney, and the participants at the LaLonde conference. ⁎ Tel./fax: +61 2 9351 6433/6732. E-mail address: [email protected].
0148-2963/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2007.09.018
which are not easily justified. Finding a justification for an action is important because people are less likely to consume without an adequate rationalization for the action (Okada, 2005). In the empirical work presented here, a (dis)incentive manipulation and a decision to repeat a behavior are combined to create a situation where the justification to engage in the desired activity is difficult to generate. The results show that when participants want to engage in a behavior, but are faced with a disincentive, they remember a more positive retrospective evaluation of the initial experience. How does this happen? The positive evaluation is the result of strategically selecting the most pleasant moments associated with the event. Specifically, when participants want to engage in an activity, but face a disincentive, they are more accurate in their memory for the peak positive moment compared to other participants because they focus on this moment during the construction of the retrospective evaluation. Another possible explanation, distorting the remembered details of the experience, is tested and rejected. The first section briefly reviews the literature on justifying a decision which may be tempting in the short term, but not beneficial in the long term. The second section builds a motivational argument for memory reconstruction by extending previous work on motivated reasoning. Hypotheses are developed and tested with an experiment.
E. Cowley / Journal of Business Research 61 (2008) 1046–1052
2. Justifying a hedonic activity 2.1. Hedonic consumption People prefer to have reasons for the things they do and the decisions they make. If a reason is not presented to them, then they will construct one. This is particularly true when people feel a need to justify the decision (Shafir et al., 1993) which is often the case with hedonic consumption (Kivetz and Simonson, 2002). In fact, hedonic consumption frequently requires a strong justification such as ‘earning the right’ to indulge (Kivetz and Zheng, 2006; Kivetz and Simonson, 2002) which occurs when the individual justifying the decision believes that he or she has expended enough effort during a task to entitle him or her to a reward after the hard work is complete. Working for the right to indulge relieves the guilt that often accompanies hedonic consumption (Kivetz and Simonson, 2002). Another strategy to rationalize engaging in a hedonic pursuit is to use a windfall to pay for the activity (Arkes et al., 1994). This is the opposite of earning the right to indulge since the decision maker is thinking “I'm not really paying for this anyway.” A windfall allows the winner to finance the activity with funds that are not the fruits of his or her labor which are generally reserved for the procurement of the necessities of life. Arkes et al. (1994) describe a windfall as more spendable, and is therefore, easier to justify spending on a hedonic activity. Another approach to justifying a hedonic activity is to increase the degree to which pleasure was experienced when engaging in the activity in the past. If the cost remains the same (in terms of time or money), but the pleasure derived increases, then the individual looking to repeat the hedonic activity is facing a lower cost per unit of pleasure. The strategy of magnifying the retrospective evaluation is investigated here. How might an individual construct a more positive retrospective evaluation? 2.2. Retrospective evaluations Given that people do not construct retrospective evaluations by summing the total amount of pain or pleasure felt during an experience, but instead, by selecting a few particular moments (Ariely, 1998; Ariely and Carmon, 2000; Chapman, 2000; Fredrickson and Kahneman, 1993; Hsee and Abelson, 1991; Kahneman et al., 1993, 1997; Redelmeier and Kahneman, 1996; Schreiber and Kahneman, 2000; Ross and Simonson, 1991; Varey and Kahneman, 1992), then they are able to strategically select moments to reflect most positively on an experience. Specifically, in an experience including both positive and negative moments, the evaluator can select the most positive moments when constructing a retrospective evaluation of an experience. An alternative method for remembering a more positive episode is to inflate the positive moments, or even confabulate new positive moments and/or reduce or eliminate negative moments in the experience. Why might people strategically select moments instead of distorting them? The strategic selection of moments is consistent with a motivated reasoning framework (Kunda, 1990) where people use the information stored in memory that is most likely to advocate
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their desired outcome. In their review of motivated reasoning research, Higgins and Molden (2003) assert that people are not only motivated in terms of the outcome they desire, “but also with respect to the manner in which they make their judgments. Therefore, beyond favoring particular conclusions, people may be independently motivated to reach these conclusions using strategies that “feel right” given their current motivational orientation” (p.214). Strategically selecting moments allows people to build a more positive retrospective evaluation without actually falsifying details of the past which facilitates “feeling right” about the evaluation. The positive retrospective evaluation allows people to justify a judgment or a preferred alternative to themselves as well as to others. The proposition here is that if people are motivated to repeat an activity that is difficult to justify, they will be motivated to reconstruct their memory for past experiences such that past experiences provide support for engaging in a desired activity. 3. Hypotheses Given that hedonic activities are more difficult to justify (Prelec and Loewenstein, 1998; Thaler, 1980), they present an ideal context to investigate motivated memory construction. Using the strategic selection of moments to construct a more positive retrospective evaluation may strengthen an otherwise weak justification to repeat a behavior. Remembering a more positive experience will provide support for the decision to engage in an activity that can be difficult to rationalize. The construction of an edited retrospective evaluation will allow players to “feel right” about the replay decision. H1. When people want to repeat an activity that is difficult to justify, they report a more positive retrospective evaluation of the initial experience than people who want to repeat an activity that is easy to justify. Although the retrospective evaluation is expected to be constructed as more positive, this does not occur because the peak moment of positive affect (or the largest win) is exaggerated or that the person remembers a better final moment. Instead, strategic editors of the retrospective evaluations will be more accurate in their reported memory of the details of the experience, particularly for a positive moment if they lost overall. Enhanced memory may be the result of greater attention or rehearsal of the event. The second hypothesis, therefore, is that people looking to justify a future behavior will more accurately remember a large win in a mixed loss experience. H2. When people want to repeat activity that is difficult to justify, they more accurately remember the most positive moment of a previous experience if the experience was negative overall. 4. Method 4.1. Sample and procedure One hundred and twenty two university students participated in exchange for course credit. Participants were told that they
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would not be playing for money for the first game, but that they would be offered a chance to play for money after the first game. Participants then played a simulated poker machine. After the game was played and participants had been provided with a (dis)incentive to replay, they indicated whether they would like to replay the game or not. Participants also provided a retrospective evaluation of the experience, a rating of their perceived performance, their memory of the largest win, the largest loss, and the final outcome. Finally, players entered a draw to replay in the future. Ten of the players reporting a desire to replay the game were contacted and allowed to play the game for money. Each of these players won between $10.00 and $15.00. Players that wanted to replay the game in the disincentive condition found themselves in a situation where their desired behavior was difficult to justify. For this reason, participants who reported a desire to replay in the disincentive condition were expected to use editing strategies to remember a more enjoyable experience. The design also includes two levels of game outcome: winning and losing. The losers face an even more difficult challenge in terms of justifying a replay decision. The addition of the outcome manipulation provides a stronger test of the hypotheses. 4.2. Design The design of the study is a 2 × 2 × 2 design with 2 types of incentive (incentive, disincentive), 2 levels of outcome (win, loss), and 2 levels of desire to replay (desire, no desire). The incentive and outcome were manipulated. Participants were randomly allocated to condition. The desire to replay was determined with a division of the desire to replay measure. 4.3. The stimulus 4.3.1. The game Participants played a poker machine for 300 games. Each player started with 3000 credits on the machine. Winners won 2000 credits (i.e. final credit position of 5000 minus 3000) and losers finished 2000 credits behind (final credit position of 1000 minus 3000). Each participant experienced one large win and one
large loss. The large win and the large loss were operationalized with a feature game. The feature included 15 free games and a Black Jack card decision. At the end of the free games, 500 points had been accumulated on the credit meter. Participants then had to play a double or nothing game where they pick either black or red as the suit color of the next card in a game of Black Jack. For the large win, the participants won the double or nothing game. The total win was 1000 credits. For the large loss, the participants lost the double or nothing game. The loss resulted in eradication of the 500 credits accumulated during the free games and a further reduction of 500 credits from the credit meter. The total loss was 1000 credits. All other wins and losses were less than 100 points. 4.3.2. Manipulation of a difficult situation to justify After a filler task, participants were provided with either an incentive or a disincentive to replay the game before retrospectively evaluating the experience. In the incentive condition, participants were told the following: “You may be given a chance to play the gambling game for 10 minutes when the study is complete…this time for money! If you win, you can keep the winnings at a rate of 1¢ per credit. If you lose you will be required to fill in some survey questions six weeks from now (5 minutes for each $10.00 lost).” The incentive condition instructions were accompanied by a photo of money. See Fig. 1. In the disincentive condition, participants were told the following: “You may be given a chance to play the Maid Marion® game six weeks from now. If you want to play you need to earn some credits now. To earn credits, you will be required to fill in some survey questions for 30 min. If you win, you can keep the winnings at a rate of 1¢ per credit.” The incentive condition instructions were accompanied by a photo of paperwork. See Fig. 1. The incentive conditions were pre-tested on 48 different students from the same participant pool. Pre-test participants read one of the incentives and indicated the degree to which they found the incentive appealing by marking an X on a 100 mm scale anchored with ‘not at all appealing’ (0) and ‘very appealing’ (100). As expected, the incentive condition was considered to be significantly more appealing than the disincentive condition (Mincentive = 74.12, Mdisincentive = 37.83, t = 4.80, p b .0001).
Fig. 1. Photos accompanying the motivation manipulation.
E. Cowley / Journal of Business Research 61 (2008) 1046–1052
4.3.3. Measuring the desire to replay Participants were then asked if they would like to play again. The replay decision was posed as follows: “If you are eligible, would you be interested in playing again?” Participants indicated their desire to replay by placing an X on a 100 mm continuous scale anchored with ‘not at all interested’ (0) and ‘very interested’ (100). People in the disincentive condition that wanted to play again (answered between 51 and 100 on the scale) were expected to distort their memory such that they could justify a replay decision, particularly in the loss condition. Players not wanting to replay were expected to be relatively accurate in their reconstruction of the gaming experience because they have no motivation to distort the past. The pattern of results does not change when the scale is divided into thirds and participants responding in the middle third are omitted from the analysis. Fifty nine participants chose to replay and 63 participants did not. The replay decision was not significantly correlated to the incentive condition (r = .02, p b .10) or whether the participant won or lost (r = .01, p b .10). 4.4. Dependent measures Participants were asked to rate their enjoyment of the experience playing the poker machine by placing an X on a 100 mm continuous scale anchored with ‘not at all enjoyable’ (0) and ‘very enjoyable’ (100). Participants were then asked to estimate how well they thought they played by placing an X on a 100 mm continuous scale anchored with ‘not at all well’ (0) and ‘very well’ (100). They were asked to remember the credits gained in the biggest win, the credits lost in the biggest loss of their gaming session, and the final score (credits remaining on the meter). 5. Results Importantly, no correlation was found between the disincentive condition and the desire to replay (r = − 0.08, n.s.). The manipulation did not affect the participants desire to replay. This is critical because the manipulation was designed to affect the need to justify the decision to replay, not the motivation to replay. If the correlation was significant, skeptics could argue that the manipulation provided the participants the right to indulge as the disincentive necessitates hard work before playing. If participants felt they had a right to replay, they would need no further justification. The test for H1 will investigate whether the manipulation + the desire to replay affected the incidence of retrospective editing amongst participants. An even stronger test of the hypothesis is to consider whether the manipulation + the desire to replay + the outcome affected the incidence of retrospective editing amongst participants, such that losers that wanted to replay in the disincentive condition were most likely to wear rose-colored glasses.
revealed a significant two-way interaction between incentive and replay decision was also significant (F(1, 114) = 14.67, p b .001): participants in the disincentive condition that chose play again remembered the most positive experience. Not surprisingly, the main effect for the replay decision was also significant (F(1, 114) = 43.88, p b .0001): participants choosing to play again remembered a more positive experience. Interestingly, the three-way interaction between outcome, the type of incentive, and replay decision was also significant (F(1, 114) = 5.77, p b .05): the losers in the disincentive condition that wanted to play faced an even more disagreeable situation reported the most positive retrospective evaluation. This is compelling because they could not even use a positive outcome as a justification for wanting to play again. See Fig. 2. Individual ANOVAs for each incentive condition were run to assist in understanding the three-way interaction. As expected, an ANOVA of retrospective evaluations with outcome and replay decision when a disincentive was provided revealed a significant interaction effect (F(1, 57) = 3.97, p b .05): players that chose to replay remembered a more positive experience when they lost. Hypothesis 1 is supported. As expected, an ANOVA of retrospective evaluations with outcome and replay decision when an incentive was provided revealed no significant interaction effects. Not surprisingly, the analysis revealed a main effect for the desire to replay (F(1, 57) = 4.85, p b .05): those reporting a desire to replay remembered a more positive experience. 5.2. Hypothesis testing — H2 Memory for the big win was most accurate for the participants that needed to justify their decision to replay, but faced a disincentive and lost the game. The absolute value of the accuracy of the reported big win was used as a dependent variable in an ANOVA with the outcome, the type of incentive, and replay decision as independent factors. The ANOVA revealed a significant three-way interaction (F(1, 114) = 4.65, p b .05). This was expected because increased attention to the moments during the construct of the retrospective evaluation should result in more accurate memory.
5.1. Hypothesis tests — H1 An ANOVA of retrospective evaluation with the outcome, the type of incentive, and replay decision as independent factors
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Fig. 2. Retrospective evaluation by incentive and replay desire.
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the experience which is commonly found in research considering memory for observed events (Loftus, 1996). See Table 1. 5.3. Additional analysis It is noteworthy that perceived performance was also affected by the need to justify a replay decision. The pattern of results is consistent with the retrospective evaluation results for the two-way interaction created by the manipulation of the incentive and the reported desire to replay. See Fig. 4. Participants in the disincentive condition that decided to replay believed they performed better when they choose to replay (F(1, 114) = 4.97, p b .05). Although a main effect was found for the outcome (F(1, 114) = 15.51, p b .0001); where winners believed that they performed better than losers, no significant interactions with outcome was revealed.
Fig. 3. Memory for the salient moment.
Individual ANOVAs for each incentive condition were run to assist in understanding the three-way interaction. An ANOVA of memory accuracy for the big win with outcome and replay decision when a disincentive was provided revealed a significant interaction effect (F(1, 57) = 5.95, p b .05): players that chose to replay were most accurate when they lost. Hypothesis 2 is supported. An ANOVA of memory accuracy for the big win with outcome and replay decision when an incentive was provided revealed no main effects or interactions. See Fig. 3. Did memory distortion occur? An alternative explanation for the results is that the change in the retrospective evaluation for participants that wanted to replay, but were faced with a situation that made the decision difficult to justify simply exaggerated the big win and/or reduced the big loss. Support for the alternative explanation would require a significant interaction of the desire to replay and the incentive condition, and possibly three-way interactions between the outcome, the desire to replay and the incentive condition for the actual reported memory of the big win and the big loss and the final outcome. ANOVAs run on memory of the big win, the big loss, and the unsigned final outcome with outcome (win, loss), type of incentive, and replay decision as independent factors revealed no main effects or interactions. Apparently the motivation to justify the decision does not affect the memory for the details of
5.4. Discussion of results Participants that indicated a desire to replay in the disincentive condition reported more positive retrospective evaluations for the experience, particularly when they lost the game. Participants who were provided an incentive to replay did not have to edit their memory for the experience as the incentive was sufficient in providing justification for the replay decision. Results for the players' perceived performance mirrored the results for retrospective evaluations. Objectively speaking, skills that will improve a player's score in a games of pure chance, such as those played on poker machines, are nonexistent. However, people have been shown to demonstrate an illusion of control (Langer, 1975) in their belief that something they did during the game influenced the outcome. How does the need to justify an activity foster beliefs in erroneous skills? Perhaps replaying is easier to justify if the player believes they can use their skills to win. An interesting question for future research is whether the strategic selection of moments has a role to play in this erroneous belief. The strategic selection of moments affects the accuracy of memory for the details of the game (size of the big win or the big loss). This is consistent with the notion that the strategy is a matter of attention, as opposed to memory distortion of the facts
Table 1 Memory for the big win and big loss Memory measures
Outcome Loss
Win
Incentive
Absolute error (big win) Actual (big win) Absolute error (big loss) Actual (big loss) Absolute final outcome
Disincentive
Incentive
Disincentive
No replay
Play again
No replay
Play again
No replay
Play again
No replay
Play again
443.0 1010.1 239.2 985.5 2248.9
548.5 879.8 479.3 919.9 1957.7
658.2 1117.1 484.9 1012.7 2167.3
263.3 1085.0 380.5 859.5 2400.5
537.5 874.2 274.3 943.4 2117.2
483.7 985.2 433.5 859.3 2313.8
400.4 1165.8 423.3 889.5 2056.2
433.1 886.1 485.4 749.3 2483.7
Absolute errors are calculated by taking the absolute difference between the remembered amount and the actual amount.
E. Cowley / Journal of Business Research 61 (2008) 1046–1052
Fig. 4. Perceived performance.
of the experience. Perhaps distorting the facts is unnecessary when trying to justify repeating a behavior to one 's self. The justification is required to convince other people of the wisdom of the decision, perhaps the strategies to produce decisionsupporting evidence become more extreme. In this case, tinting their glasses to a rose color may demand more tangible evidence. 6. General discussion Participants wanting to repeat an activity, but faced with a disincentive, strategically selected moments when evaluating a previous experience, in order that the evaluation was more positive. The result is consistent with Thaler's (1985) notion of looking for a silver lining in an experience as a strategy to maximize happiness. Interestingly, participants that did not have any desire to play the game again did not show any evidence of wearing brown-colored glasses. In other words, those not wanting to play the game again did not actively select moments to construct a more negative retrospective evaluation as a selfcontrol device. Nor did these players remember losing more points or attribute the loss to a less skilled performance on their part. However, they were directionally more accurate in their memory for the big loss, suggesting that certain instances where moments are selected to support a ‘no repeat’ decision could potentially exist. Investigating whether the strategic selection of moments is used to justify non-participation in a hedonic activity is an intriguing question for further research. Situations where people feel the need for a stronger rationale to not do something may require more dramatic strategies. For instance, if social pressure was applied to an individual who does not want to repeat a hedonic activity, then perhaps a more negative retrospective evaluation would be constructed to justify not participating. Another possible scenario for the occurrence of looking through brown-colored glasses might be if a precommitment has been made to engage in activity, but the initial experience is such that repeating the behavior is undesirable, yet planned. Perceived performance is higher when a justification is necessary. Perhaps players in the disincentive/desire to replay group are trying to convince themselves that not only will they
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enjoy repeating the activity, but that a good chance that they will win money if they play again. As was stated earlier, performance is not under the control of the participant, but most people believe that at least a degree of skill or luck is involved. Increasing the odds of winning may further support the decision to play again. Alternatively, perhaps perceived performance is higher for the participants that wanted to play again because their memory for the most positive moment is very accurate. The feature game which resulted in the big win did require a decision. Focusing on that moment could inflate the evaluation of performance. Two limitations to this work should be mentioned. Participants were randomly assigned to the incentive condition, but not to the desire to replay group. Therefore, no assurance can be provided that systematic differences do not exist between people wanting to play again and those indicating that they do not want to play again. Another limitation of the design is that the degree to which the incentive was appealing or the disincentive was unappealing was pre-tested, but not measured as a manipulation check in the main study. The results of this research contribute to the literature considering the construction of retrospective evaluations in a mixed positive and negative experience. Previous work considering retrospective evaluations has focused on the inclusion of post-experience information (Braun, 1999; Cowley and Janus, 2004) or the selection of accessible moments (Ariely, 1998; Kahneman et al., 1993, 1997; Redelmeier and Kahneman, 1996; Schreiber and Kahneman, 2000). The research reported here uses motivated reasoning to explain retrospective evaluations. The outcome alone does not explain the results, which is interesting. If readers had been asked “Who is more likely to want to replay — winners or losers?” before reading the results, the author would wager that the majority of readers would have chosen the winners. Apparently, a positive outcome is not the only fodder used to endorse repeating a hedonic activity.
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Journal of Business Research 61 (2008) 1046 – 1052
Looking back at an experience through rose-colored glasses☆ Elizabeth Cowley ⁎ Discipline of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Received 1 March 2007; received in revised form 1 July 2007; accepted 1 September 2007
Abstract The benefit of looking on the bright side of an experience is part of everyday vernacular and is supported empirically in academic research. The proposition here is that when people need to justify repeating an activity, they will try to reconstruct the past as more positive. The positive memory provides them with ammunition to rationalize a desired activity. Participants were offered either an incentive or a disincentive to replay a game. Participants in the disincentive condition who indicated a desire to replay, needed to justify the replay decision more than other participants. These participants were more likely to strategically select moments from a previous experience to construct a positive retrospective evaluation. A plausible alternative explanation for the results, distorting the salient moments of the experience, is tested and rejected. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Memory reconstruction; Motivation; Retrospective evaluation
1. Introduction: Using the past to justify the future Imagine that you would like to do something that has had negative ramifications in the past. For instance, every time you go to a buffet restaurant you eat more than you know you should and leave the restaurant feeling guilty and a little too full. However, at the moment, you are thinking about the variety of flavors and the chance to ‘sample’ different dishes as well as not having to commit to one particular dish. One of the techniques you might use to justify the decision to visit the favored ‘allyou-can-eat’ establishment is to construct positive retrospective evaluations of previous visits to buffet style restaurants. The research presented here investigates whether strategically reflecting on the past such that previous experiences are remembered as more pleasant may be used to support decisions
☆ This research was funded by an Australia Research Council Linkage Grant and the industry linkage partner Russell Corporate Advisory. The author gratefully acknowledges the insightful comments of Donnel Briley, the Behavioral Finance group at the University of Sydney, and the participants at the LaLonde conference. ⁎ Tel./fax: +61 2 9351 6433/6732. E-mail address: [email protected].
0148-2963/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2007.09.018
which are not easily justified. Finding a justification for an action is important because people are less likely to consume without an adequate rationalization for the action (Okada, 2005). In the empirical work presented here, a (dis)incentive manipulation and a decision to repeat a behavior are combined to create a situation where the justification to engage in the desired activity is difficult to generate. The results show that when participants want to engage in a behavior, but are faced with a disincentive, they remember a more positive retrospective evaluation of the initial experience. How does this happen? The positive evaluation is the result of strategically selecting the most pleasant moments associated with the event. Specifically, when participants want to engage in an activity, but face a disincentive, they are more accurate in their memory for the peak positive moment compared to other participants because they focus on this moment during the construction of the retrospective evaluation. Another possible explanation, distorting the remembered details of the experience, is tested and rejected. The first section briefly reviews the literature on justifying a decision which may be tempting in the short term, but not beneficial in the long term. The second section builds a motivational argument for memory reconstruction by extending previous work on motivated reasoning. Hypotheses are developed and tested with an experiment.
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2. Justifying a hedonic activity 2.1. Hedonic consumption People prefer to have reasons for the things they do and the decisions they make. If a reason is not presented to them, then they will construct one. This is particularly true when people feel a need to justify the decision (Shafir et al., 1993) which is often the case with hedonic consumption (Kivetz and Simonson, 2002). In fact, hedonic consumption frequently requires a strong justification such as ‘earning the right’ to indulge (Kivetz and Zheng, 2006; Kivetz and Simonson, 2002) which occurs when the individual justifying the decision believes that he or she has expended enough effort during a task to entitle him or her to a reward after the hard work is complete. Working for the right to indulge relieves the guilt that often accompanies hedonic consumption (Kivetz and Simonson, 2002). Another strategy to rationalize engaging in a hedonic pursuit is to use a windfall to pay for the activity (Arkes et al., 1994). This is the opposite of earning the right to indulge since the decision maker is thinking “I'm not really paying for this anyway.” A windfall allows the winner to finance the activity with funds that are not the fruits of his or her labor which are generally reserved for the procurement of the necessities of life. Arkes et al. (1994) describe a windfall as more spendable, and is therefore, easier to justify spending on a hedonic activity. Another approach to justifying a hedonic activity is to increase the degree to which pleasure was experienced when engaging in the activity in the past. If the cost remains the same (in terms of time or money), but the pleasure derived increases, then the individual looking to repeat the hedonic activity is facing a lower cost per unit of pleasure. The strategy of magnifying the retrospective evaluation is investigated here. How might an individual construct a more positive retrospective evaluation? 2.2. Retrospective evaluations Given that people do not construct retrospective evaluations by summing the total amount of pain or pleasure felt during an experience, but instead, by selecting a few particular moments (Ariely, 1998; Ariely and Carmon, 2000; Chapman, 2000; Fredrickson and Kahneman, 1993; Hsee and Abelson, 1991; Kahneman et al., 1993, 1997; Redelmeier and Kahneman, 1996; Schreiber and Kahneman, 2000; Ross and Simonson, 1991; Varey and Kahneman, 1992), then they are able to strategically select moments to reflect most positively on an experience. Specifically, in an experience including both positive and negative moments, the evaluator can select the most positive moments when constructing a retrospective evaluation of an experience. An alternative method for remembering a more positive episode is to inflate the positive moments, or even confabulate new positive moments and/or reduce or eliminate negative moments in the experience. Why might people strategically select moments instead of distorting them? The strategic selection of moments is consistent with a motivated reasoning framework (Kunda, 1990) where people use the information stored in memory that is most likely to advocate
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their desired outcome. In their review of motivated reasoning research, Higgins and Molden (2003) assert that people are not only motivated in terms of the outcome they desire, “but also with respect to the manner in which they make their judgments. Therefore, beyond favoring particular conclusions, people may be independently motivated to reach these conclusions using strategies that “feel right” given their current motivational orientation” (p.214). Strategically selecting moments allows people to build a more positive retrospective evaluation without actually falsifying details of the past which facilitates “feeling right” about the evaluation. The positive retrospective evaluation allows people to justify a judgment or a preferred alternative to themselves as well as to others. The proposition here is that if people are motivated to repeat an activity that is difficult to justify, they will be motivated to reconstruct their memory for past experiences such that past experiences provide support for engaging in a desired activity. 3. Hypotheses Given that hedonic activities are more difficult to justify (Prelec and Loewenstein, 1998; Thaler, 1980), they present an ideal context to investigate motivated memory construction. Using the strategic selection of moments to construct a more positive retrospective evaluation may strengthen an otherwise weak justification to repeat a behavior. Remembering a more positive experience will provide support for the decision to engage in an activity that can be difficult to rationalize. The construction of an edited retrospective evaluation will allow players to “feel right” about the replay decision. H1. When people want to repeat an activity that is difficult to justify, they report a more positive retrospective evaluation of the initial experience than people who want to repeat an activity that is easy to justify. Although the retrospective evaluation is expected to be constructed as more positive, this does not occur because the peak moment of positive affect (or the largest win) is exaggerated or that the person remembers a better final moment. Instead, strategic editors of the retrospective evaluations will be more accurate in their reported memory of the details of the experience, particularly for a positive moment if they lost overall. Enhanced memory may be the result of greater attention or rehearsal of the event. The second hypothesis, therefore, is that people looking to justify a future behavior will more accurately remember a large win in a mixed loss experience. H2. When people want to repeat activity that is difficult to justify, they more accurately remember the most positive moment of a previous experience if the experience was negative overall. 4. Method 4.1. Sample and procedure One hundred and twenty two university students participated in exchange for course credit. Participants were told that they
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would not be playing for money for the first game, but that they would be offered a chance to play for money after the first game. Participants then played a simulated poker machine. After the game was played and participants had been provided with a (dis)incentive to replay, they indicated whether they would like to replay the game or not. Participants also provided a retrospective evaluation of the experience, a rating of their perceived performance, their memory of the largest win, the largest loss, and the final outcome. Finally, players entered a draw to replay in the future. Ten of the players reporting a desire to replay the game were contacted and allowed to play the game for money. Each of these players won between $10.00 and $15.00. Players that wanted to replay the game in the disincentive condition found themselves in a situation where their desired behavior was difficult to justify. For this reason, participants who reported a desire to replay in the disincentive condition were expected to use editing strategies to remember a more enjoyable experience. The design also includes two levels of game outcome: winning and losing. The losers face an even more difficult challenge in terms of justifying a replay decision. The addition of the outcome manipulation provides a stronger test of the hypotheses. 4.2. Design The design of the study is a 2 × 2 × 2 design with 2 types of incentive (incentive, disincentive), 2 levels of outcome (win, loss), and 2 levels of desire to replay (desire, no desire). The incentive and outcome were manipulated. Participants were randomly allocated to condition. The desire to replay was determined with a division of the desire to replay measure. 4.3. The stimulus 4.3.1. The game Participants played a poker machine for 300 games. Each player started with 3000 credits on the machine. Winners won 2000 credits (i.e. final credit position of 5000 minus 3000) and losers finished 2000 credits behind (final credit position of 1000 minus 3000). Each participant experienced one large win and one
large loss. The large win and the large loss were operationalized with a feature game. The feature included 15 free games and a Black Jack card decision. At the end of the free games, 500 points had been accumulated on the credit meter. Participants then had to play a double or nothing game where they pick either black or red as the suit color of the next card in a game of Black Jack. For the large win, the participants won the double or nothing game. The total win was 1000 credits. For the large loss, the participants lost the double or nothing game. The loss resulted in eradication of the 500 credits accumulated during the free games and a further reduction of 500 credits from the credit meter. The total loss was 1000 credits. All other wins and losses were less than 100 points. 4.3.2. Manipulation of a difficult situation to justify After a filler task, participants were provided with either an incentive or a disincentive to replay the game before retrospectively evaluating the experience. In the incentive condition, participants were told the following: “You may be given a chance to play the gambling game for 10 minutes when the study is complete…this time for money! If you win, you can keep the winnings at a rate of 1¢ per credit. If you lose you will be required to fill in some survey questions six weeks from now (5 minutes for each $10.00 lost).” The incentive condition instructions were accompanied by a photo of money. See Fig. 1. In the disincentive condition, participants were told the following: “You may be given a chance to play the Maid Marion® game six weeks from now. If you want to play you need to earn some credits now. To earn credits, you will be required to fill in some survey questions for 30 min. If you win, you can keep the winnings at a rate of 1¢ per credit.” The incentive condition instructions were accompanied by a photo of paperwork. See Fig. 1. The incentive conditions were pre-tested on 48 different students from the same participant pool. Pre-test participants read one of the incentives and indicated the degree to which they found the incentive appealing by marking an X on a 100 mm scale anchored with ‘not at all appealing’ (0) and ‘very appealing’ (100). As expected, the incentive condition was considered to be significantly more appealing than the disincentive condition (Mincentive = 74.12, Mdisincentive = 37.83, t = 4.80, p b .0001).
Fig. 1. Photos accompanying the motivation manipulation.
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4.3.3. Measuring the desire to replay Participants were then asked if they would like to play again. The replay decision was posed as follows: “If you are eligible, would you be interested in playing again?” Participants indicated their desire to replay by placing an X on a 100 mm continuous scale anchored with ‘not at all interested’ (0) and ‘very interested’ (100). People in the disincentive condition that wanted to play again (answered between 51 and 100 on the scale) were expected to distort their memory such that they could justify a replay decision, particularly in the loss condition. Players not wanting to replay were expected to be relatively accurate in their reconstruction of the gaming experience because they have no motivation to distort the past. The pattern of results does not change when the scale is divided into thirds and participants responding in the middle third are omitted from the analysis. Fifty nine participants chose to replay and 63 participants did not. The replay decision was not significantly correlated to the incentive condition (r = .02, p b .10) or whether the participant won or lost (r = .01, p b .10). 4.4. Dependent measures Participants were asked to rate their enjoyment of the experience playing the poker machine by placing an X on a 100 mm continuous scale anchored with ‘not at all enjoyable’ (0) and ‘very enjoyable’ (100). Participants were then asked to estimate how well they thought they played by placing an X on a 100 mm continuous scale anchored with ‘not at all well’ (0) and ‘very well’ (100). They were asked to remember the credits gained in the biggest win, the credits lost in the biggest loss of their gaming session, and the final score (credits remaining on the meter). 5. Results Importantly, no correlation was found between the disincentive condition and the desire to replay (r = − 0.08, n.s.). The manipulation did not affect the participants desire to replay. This is critical because the manipulation was designed to affect the need to justify the decision to replay, not the motivation to replay. If the correlation was significant, skeptics could argue that the manipulation provided the participants the right to indulge as the disincentive necessitates hard work before playing. If participants felt they had a right to replay, they would need no further justification. The test for H1 will investigate whether the manipulation + the desire to replay affected the incidence of retrospective editing amongst participants. An even stronger test of the hypothesis is to consider whether the manipulation + the desire to replay + the outcome affected the incidence of retrospective editing amongst participants, such that losers that wanted to replay in the disincentive condition were most likely to wear rose-colored glasses.
revealed a significant two-way interaction between incentive and replay decision was also significant (F(1, 114) = 14.67, p b .001): participants in the disincentive condition that chose play again remembered the most positive experience. Not surprisingly, the main effect for the replay decision was also significant (F(1, 114) = 43.88, p b .0001): participants choosing to play again remembered a more positive experience. Interestingly, the three-way interaction between outcome, the type of incentive, and replay decision was also significant (F(1, 114) = 5.77, p b .05): the losers in the disincentive condition that wanted to play faced an even more disagreeable situation reported the most positive retrospective evaluation. This is compelling because they could not even use a positive outcome as a justification for wanting to play again. See Fig. 2. Individual ANOVAs for each incentive condition were run to assist in understanding the three-way interaction. As expected, an ANOVA of retrospective evaluations with outcome and replay decision when a disincentive was provided revealed a significant interaction effect (F(1, 57) = 3.97, p b .05): players that chose to replay remembered a more positive experience when they lost. Hypothesis 1 is supported. As expected, an ANOVA of retrospective evaluations with outcome and replay decision when an incentive was provided revealed no significant interaction effects. Not surprisingly, the analysis revealed a main effect for the desire to replay (F(1, 57) = 4.85, p b .05): those reporting a desire to replay remembered a more positive experience. 5.2. Hypothesis testing — H2 Memory for the big win was most accurate for the participants that needed to justify their decision to replay, but faced a disincentive and lost the game. The absolute value of the accuracy of the reported big win was used as a dependent variable in an ANOVA with the outcome, the type of incentive, and replay decision as independent factors. The ANOVA revealed a significant three-way interaction (F(1, 114) = 4.65, p b .05). This was expected because increased attention to the moments during the construct of the retrospective evaluation should result in more accurate memory.
5.1. Hypothesis tests — H1 An ANOVA of retrospective evaluation with the outcome, the type of incentive, and replay decision as independent factors
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Fig. 2. Retrospective evaluation by incentive and replay desire.
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the experience which is commonly found in research considering memory for observed events (Loftus, 1996). See Table 1. 5.3. Additional analysis It is noteworthy that perceived performance was also affected by the need to justify a replay decision. The pattern of results is consistent with the retrospective evaluation results for the two-way interaction created by the manipulation of the incentive and the reported desire to replay. See Fig. 4. Participants in the disincentive condition that decided to replay believed they performed better when they choose to replay (F(1, 114) = 4.97, p b .05). Although a main effect was found for the outcome (F(1, 114) = 15.51, p b .0001); where winners believed that they performed better than losers, no significant interactions with outcome was revealed.
Fig. 3. Memory for the salient moment.
Individual ANOVAs for each incentive condition were run to assist in understanding the three-way interaction. An ANOVA of memory accuracy for the big win with outcome and replay decision when a disincentive was provided revealed a significant interaction effect (F(1, 57) = 5.95, p b .05): players that chose to replay were most accurate when they lost. Hypothesis 2 is supported. An ANOVA of memory accuracy for the big win with outcome and replay decision when an incentive was provided revealed no main effects or interactions. See Fig. 3. Did memory distortion occur? An alternative explanation for the results is that the change in the retrospective evaluation for participants that wanted to replay, but were faced with a situation that made the decision difficult to justify simply exaggerated the big win and/or reduced the big loss. Support for the alternative explanation would require a significant interaction of the desire to replay and the incentive condition, and possibly three-way interactions between the outcome, the desire to replay and the incentive condition for the actual reported memory of the big win and the big loss and the final outcome. ANOVAs run on memory of the big win, the big loss, and the unsigned final outcome with outcome (win, loss), type of incentive, and replay decision as independent factors revealed no main effects or interactions. Apparently the motivation to justify the decision does not affect the memory for the details of
5.4. Discussion of results Participants that indicated a desire to replay in the disincentive condition reported more positive retrospective evaluations for the experience, particularly when they lost the game. Participants who were provided an incentive to replay did not have to edit their memory for the experience as the incentive was sufficient in providing justification for the replay decision. Results for the players' perceived performance mirrored the results for retrospective evaluations. Objectively speaking, skills that will improve a player's score in a games of pure chance, such as those played on poker machines, are nonexistent. However, people have been shown to demonstrate an illusion of control (Langer, 1975) in their belief that something they did during the game influenced the outcome. How does the need to justify an activity foster beliefs in erroneous skills? Perhaps replaying is easier to justify if the player believes they can use their skills to win. An interesting question for future research is whether the strategic selection of moments has a role to play in this erroneous belief. The strategic selection of moments affects the accuracy of memory for the details of the game (size of the big win or the big loss). This is consistent with the notion that the strategy is a matter of attention, as opposed to memory distortion of the facts
Table 1 Memory for the big win and big loss Memory measures
Outcome Loss
Win
Incentive
Absolute error (big win) Actual (big win) Absolute error (big loss) Actual (big loss) Absolute final outcome
Disincentive
Incentive
Disincentive
No replay
Play again
No replay
Play again
No replay
Play again
No replay
Play again
443.0 1010.1 239.2 985.5 2248.9
548.5 879.8 479.3 919.9 1957.7
658.2 1117.1 484.9 1012.7 2167.3
263.3 1085.0 380.5 859.5 2400.5
537.5 874.2 274.3 943.4 2117.2
483.7 985.2 433.5 859.3 2313.8
400.4 1165.8 423.3 889.5 2056.2
433.1 886.1 485.4 749.3 2483.7
Absolute errors are calculated by taking the absolute difference between the remembered amount and the actual amount.
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Fig. 4. Perceived performance.
of the experience. Perhaps distorting the facts is unnecessary when trying to justify repeating a behavior to one 's self. The justification is required to convince other people of the wisdom of the decision, perhaps the strategies to produce decisionsupporting evidence become more extreme. In this case, tinting their glasses to a rose color may demand more tangible evidence. 6. General discussion Participants wanting to repeat an activity, but faced with a disincentive, strategically selected moments when evaluating a previous experience, in order that the evaluation was more positive. The result is consistent with Thaler's (1985) notion of looking for a silver lining in an experience as a strategy to maximize happiness. Interestingly, participants that did not have any desire to play the game again did not show any evidence of wearing brown-colored glasses. In other words, those not wanting to play the game again did not actively select moments to construct a more negative retrospective evaluation as a selfcontrol device. Nor did these players remember losing more points or attribute the loss to a less skilled performance on their part. However, they were directionally more accurate in their memory for the big loss, suggesting that certain instances where moments are selected to support a ‘no repeat’ decision could potentially exist. Investigating whether the strategic selection of moments is used to justify non-participation in a hedonic activity is an intriguing question for further research. Situations where people feel the need for a stronger rationale to not do something may require more dramatic strategies. For instance, if social pressure was applied to an individual who does not want to repeat a hedonic activity, then perhaps a more negative retrospective evaluation would be constructed to justify not participating. Another possible scenario for the occurrence of looking through brown-colored glasses might be if a precommitment has been made to engage in activity, but the initial experience is such that repeating the behavior is undesirable, yet planned. Perceived performance is higher when a justification is necessary. Perhaps players in the disincentive/desire to replay group are trying to convince themselves that not only will they
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enjoy repeating the activity, but that a good chance that they will win money if they play again. As was stated earlier, performance is not under the control of the participant, but most people believe that at least a degree of skill or luck is involved. Increasing the odds of winning may further support the decision to play again. Alternatively, perhaps perceived performance is higher for the participants that wanted to play again because their memory for the most positive moment is very accurate. The feature game which resulted in the big win did require a decision. Focusing on that moment could inflate the evaluation of performance. Two limitations to this work should be mentioned. Participants were randomly assigned to the incentive condition, but not to the desire to replay group. Therefore, no assurance can be provided that systematic differences do not exist between people wanting to play again and those indicating that they do not want to play again. Another limitation of the design is that the degree to which the incentive was appealing or the disincentive was unappealing was pre-tested, but not measured as a manipulation check in the main study. The results of this research contribute to the literature considering the construction of retrospective evaluations in a mixed positive and negative experience. Previous work considering retrospective evaluations has focused on the inclusion of post-experience information (Braun, 1999; Cowley and Janus, 2004) or the selection of accessible moments (Ariely, 1998; Kahneman et al., 1993, 1997; Redelmeier and Kahneman, 1996; Schreiber and Kahneman, 2000). The research reported here uses motivated reasoning to explain retrospective evaluations. The outcome alone does not explain the results, which is interesting. If readers had been asked “Who is more likely to want to replay — winners or losers?” before reading the results, the author would wager that the majority of readers would have chosen the winners. Apparently, a positive outcome is not the only fodder used to endorse repeating a hedonic activity.
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