What did social psychologist Sheena Iyengar’s research reveal about how unique people actually believe their decisions are?
That humans believe themselves to be far more unique in their decision-making patterns than the evidence shows them to be. Across many studies, Iyengar and other social psychologists have documented that people behave in surprisingly similar ways across most choice contexts, while simultaneously reporting strong beliefs that their own choices are distinctive expressions of their individual personality. The mechanism that reinforces this self-belief is interesting: people tie a decision they made to something else they were thinking or expressing at the moment of choice, and use that pairing as evidence that their decision was uniquely theirs. The pattern is universal, which is itself the point. We are all doing this. Recognizing the phenomenon does not eliminate it but lets us design selling processes that respect both the underlying universality of human decision-making, which lets structured systems work reliably across patients, and the individual experience of uniqueness, which is honored through personalized motivator surfacing and tailored case framing.
If the answers you are finding here resonate with you, my team and I work with a small group of clients each year. The next step is a complimentary Discovery Consultation and Practice Review with Dr. McAnally.
