I noticed a bias about purchasing organic milk this morning, that is perhaps a combination of the sunk cost fallacy, ugh fields and compartmentalization.
My mother is sending me information this morning that I should be giving my children organic milk (to avoid hormones, etc).
I don’t disagree with her, but I’m probably not going to start buying organic milk. This makes me feel a little sorry for my mother, that she is going to some effort to convince me I ought to take this precaution, and I’m going to nod and agree, and then finally not change my behavior.
The twinge of guilt makes me examine the ‘why’, and I believe the reason I won’t buy organic is because my children already drink much less milk than they used to. If there was one year I should have bought organic, it should have been during their first year of drinking cow milk when they drank several bottles a day and it was a major source of their nutrition. Now they only drink a couple glasses a day, and this milk is mixed with many other food sources.
I’m sure the logic is still opaque… Even if they don’t drink as much milk as they used to, the milk drinking continues over the rest of their lives and switching to organic now would make a difference. If one of the main objections is the cost of organic milk (and at first I would claim that it was) then this fact means that by switching to organic milk now, I can pay less per day to completely free them of any contaminants normal milk would expose them to. For a few extra dollars a week, my children could be rBGH-free the rest of their lives.
What is my true objection? My true objection, perhaps, is that some part of my brain is already computing what it would feel like to purchase organic milk next time in the store. I’m paying a significant amount more, so I should be feeling good about the purchase, that I am making such-and-such good choices for my family. However, I know I will only feel badly! If the marginal price of organic milk is justified now, I should have been buying it before—when my kids were small—and so every single time that I purchase organic milk I will feel a dissonance that I wasn’t purchasing it before. Either organic milk is important or it isn’t, and in deciding to ignore my mother and continue to buy regular milk, I am making a choice to behave consistently with past choices.
Some compartmentalization is at work here, because I realize all this quite consciously, and it doesn’t matter. I still feel like going to the milk aisle and glibly throwing in the carton that costs $3.49 rather than $5.50 is a viable option that I choose. I can even resolve to look at the label and chant “I am buying this rather than something else that I know is better because I don’t want to have to renounce past decisions”, and it doesn’t matter.
A factor in this locus of irrationality is that I don’t feel strongly that organic milk is better, and the extra cost is a weighing factor. Thus, the desire to avoid negative feelings is operating in a landscape that is nearly even. I trust that if I deemed it was more important to go with organic milk, I would do so. On the other hand, this is a reminder that such psychological tensions can affect more important decisions, if the need to avoid negative feelings is stronger, and I should continue to be honest with myself and be aware of them.
Past-you, using the evidence that past-you had, came to a particular conclusion. Present-you, using more evidence, may come to a different conclusion. Future-you, using still more evidence, may come to yet another conclusion. This is as it should be; that’s what evidence is for.
I noticed a bias about purchasing organic milk this morning, that is perhaps a combination of the sunk cost fallacy, ugh fields and compartmentalization.
My mother is sending me information this morning that I should be giving my children organic milk (to avoid hormones, etc). I don’t disagree with her, but I’m probably not going to start buying organic milk. This makes me feel a little sorry for my mother, that she is going to some effort to convince me I ought to take this precaution, and I’m going to nod and agree, and then finally not change my behavior.
The twinge of guilt makes me examine the ‘why’, and I believe the reason I won’t buy organic is because my children already drink much less milk than they used to. If there was one year I should have bought organic, it should have been during their first year of drinking cow milk when they drank several bottles a day and it was a major source of their nutrition. Now they only drink a couple glasses a day, and this milk is mixed with many other food sources.
I’m sure the logic is still opaque… Even if they don’t drink as much milk as they used to, the milk drinking continues over the rest of their lives and switching to organic now would make a difference. If one of the main objections is the cost of organic milk (and at first I would claim that it was) then this fact means that by switching to organic milk now, I can pay less per day to completely free them of any contaminants normal milk would expose them to. For a few extra dollars a week, my children could be rBGH-free the rest of their lives.
What is my true objection? My true objection, perhaps, is that some part of my brain is already computing what it would feel like to purchase organic milk next time in the store. I’m paying a significant amount more, so I should be feeling good about the purchase, that I am making such-and-such good choices for my family. However, I know I will only feel badly! If the marginal price of organic milk is justified now, I should have been buying it before—when my kids were small—and so every single time that I purchase organic milk I will feel a dissonance that I wasn’t purchasing it before. Either organic milk is important or it isn’t, and in deciding to ignore my mother and continue to buy regular milk, I am making a choice to behave consistently with past choices.
Some compartmentalization is at work here, because I realize all this quite consciously, and it doesn’t matter. I still feel like going to the milk aisle and glibly throwing in the carton that costs $3.49 rather than $5.50 is a viable option that I choose. I can even resolve to look at the label and chant “I am buying this rather than something else that I know is better because I don’t want to have to renounce past decisions”, and it doesn’t matter.
A factor in this locus of irrationality is that I don’t feel strongly that organic milk is better, and the extra cost is a weighing factor. Thus, the desire to avoid negative feelings is operating in a landscape that is nearly even. I trust that if I deemed it was more important to go with organic milk, I would do so. On the other hand, this is a reminder that such psychological tensions can affect more important decisions, if the need to avoid negative feelings is stronger, and I should continue to be honest with myself and be aware of them.
Past-you, using the evidence that past-you had, came to a particular conclusion. Present-you, using more evidence, may come to a different conclusion. Future-you, using still more evidence, may come to yet another conclusion. This is as it should be; that’s what evidence is for.