In praise of doubt

People who are drawn to doubt and who like to see both sides of things are considered weak and flip-floppy in our society. We value certainty, action, decision. We admire people who know the truth and don’t look back. But what if it’s not possible to really know the truth? What if reality is like reading the BZFED of an eye chart while the ophthalmologist tries different lenses. “Is it clearer with #1 or #2?”

The science of behavioral economics has been heartily embraced by marketers, who intuitively understood its power even before it had a name. But most people are threatened by the notion that they don’t have a firm logical grasp on their own perceptions, choices and decisions.

The story in today’s NYTimes Liked the Show? Maybe It Was the Commercials doesn’t add any profound weight of evidence to the premise that our brains are running wild without our conscious knowledge or control, but it does turn the microscope to a topic that we all think we understand totally – TV commercials. If we can be wrong about that, what else might we be wrong about?

In two new studies, researchers who study consumer behavior argue that interrupting an experience, whether dreary or pleasant, can make it significantly more intense.

“The punch line is that commercials make TV programs more enjoyable to watch. Even bad commercials,” said Leif Nelson, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of California, San Diego, and a co-author of the new research. “When I tell people this, they just kind of stare at me, in disbelief. The findings are simultaneously implausible and empirically coherent.”

Over the years, psychological research has found that people are not always so clear on what makes them happy. When reporting on their own well-being, they exhibit a kind of equilibrium: After a loss (divorce, say) or a gain (a promotion), they typically return in time to about the same happiness level as before. Humans habituate quickly, to hardship and prosperity, to war and peace.

Gal Zauberman, an associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said the findings were solid, and added: “To me, the most interesting part is that almost everyone says, ‘I just wish I never had to watch a commercial.’

“It’s all a part of this phenomenon that we have found in other work,” he continued, “that people are not fully aware of what makes them happy, especially when there’s a temporal component, when one experience affects another in time.”

If that doesn't get you to think that, just maybe you don't have all the answers, what would?