What’s the real reason you refuse to eat broccoli? Research on the origins of our preferences reveals surprising insights.
suggest that humans unconsciously decide to like something based on previously made choices.
What they found is that the preferences we have as adults may be based on random decisions we made when we were very young. The results of this research were published“It’s actually the choice that comes first, and in a sort of random way,” Feigenson says. “And, actually, our preferences get built up based on our choices.
“We draw their attention to both [blocks] and then we hand them one. So everything's the same except that the babies never got to make that initial choice,” Feigenson says. Afterward, similar to the first experiment, the babies chose between the toy given to them by the experimenter or a brand-new one. But the results were statistically insignificant: Some chose the new toy, some didn’t.