The Goal of Consistency as a Cause of Information Distortion

Why, during a decision between new alternatives, do people bias their evaluation of new information to support a tentatively preferred option? We test three decision process goals as the potential drivers of such predecisional distortion of information: (a) to reduce the effort of integrating new information, (b) to increase the separation between alternatives, and (c) to achieve consistency between old and new units of information. Two methods, the nonconscious priming of each goal and assessment of the ambient level of goal activation, reveal that the goal of consistency drives information distortion. The results suggest a potential role for both the consistency goal and our combination of methods in helping explain other judgment and decision biases