Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a Psychology class.
ProfessorOK, so an example of this from my own life: five or six years ago, I was helping a friend of mine decide on a house to buy. He had been in the market to buy a house and he had it narrowed down to this one house that he was interested in. What he really liked about this house was it had an excellent location. It was in a great place that was actually in the same part of town where he was working right up the street from his job. So he wouldn't have far to drive to get to work which he really liked. However, the downside of this house was that it was smaller than what he was hoping to buy. He wanted to buy sort of a big house and this house just wasn't that big. So it was a tough decision. But my friend eventually did decide to buy the house. And a few years after he made the purchase, I remember, we were talking about the decision and why he decided to buy the house. He told me, well, of course, it was because of the house’s location. He told me how happy he was with the fact it was so close to his work, how great it was only few minutes from his job. I said, “Yes, but, what about its size? Do you still think the house is kind of small?” And he looked at me kind of surprised, “Small? What do you mean small?” Like he didn’t know what I was talking about. The house’s size, a couple of years after buying it, just didn’t seem to be on his mind anymore.
Explain how the example from the professor’s lecture illustrate the choice-supportive bias.
The tendency that people are likely to neglect the disadvantages of their choice after they've made it is called choice-supportive bias. For example，the professor's friend wanted to buy a house several years ago, and he found a house located in the same part of the town where he worked. But the house was not so perfect to his friend because it was smaller than what he wanted to buy. So it was a tough decision. Anyway his friend finally bought the house for its location. A few years later, when the professor visited him, they talked about the decision and he told the professor how happily he bought a house so close to his workplace. But when the professor asked him about the size problem, he responded as if he hadn't even realized that, because he was choice-supportive biased. (154 words)
