Don’t ignore simple things for goals

While pursuing goals, people tend to ignore things that seem simple.

Washington, Feb 21: When it comes to pursuing their goals, people tend to ignore things that seem simple, according to a new study. Aparna A Labroo and Sara Kim, both psychologists at the University of Chicago, came to this conclusion after studying the extent that subjective feelings of difficulty are associated with an increased appeal towards a product.

The researchers assigned a group of students with the goals of feeling good or being kind. The students in the group that had the goad of feeling good were presented with ads for chocolate, while those with the goal of being kind were presented with a children’s charity. The volunteers were shown one of two versions of the ads - a clear, easy to read ad or a blurry, difficult to read ad (the content in both of the ads was identical). The pupils later completed questionnaires about how much they desired the chocolates and their thoughts about the charity. According to the researchers, the students who saw the charity ad also had the option of donating money to the charity. Revealing their observations in the journal Psychological Science, the researchers said that the students who viewed the ads for chocolate were more likely to desire the chocolates in the blurry ad than the ones in the clear, easy-to-read ad. They also said that the volunteers who watched the charity advertisement donated more money to the charity, but only after seeing the blurry, difficult to read ad. Based on their observations, the researchers came to the conclusion that when something is difficult, we tend to believe that because it is difficult, it must be important in helping us achieve our goals. Their findings attain significance as they are counterintuitive to earlier studies that showed that objects are liked more when they are easy to process and understand. The authors suggest that when we have goals, we need to be careful as we consider just how useful certain actions and products will be in helping us meet those goals - and that difficult is not necessarily better. ANI