Explaining a choice: what reasons given afterwards do not prove
Managers are often asked to explain why they selected a supplier, an investment or an operational priority. The managerial question is precise: how can we check whether that explanation reflects the criteria actually used rather than a plausible reconstruction?
What the literature establishes
Richard E. Nisbett and Timothy DeCamp Wilson (1977, Psychological Review) examine the limitations of verbal reports on mental processes. Their analysis suggests that some explanations draw on plausible theories about what must have influenced a judgement rather than direct access to that process. Being able to state a reason is therefore not enough to establish its causal role in a choice.
An explanation can follow a choice that was not one's own
Petter Johansson, Lars Hall, Sverker Sikström and Andreas Olsson (2005, Science) ask participants to choose between photographs of faces and then explain some of their choices. On some trials, the researchers covertly present the face the participant had not chosen. Some participants fail to detect the substitution and nevertheless give reasons supporting the outcome presented.
The premature conclusion
It would be excessive to conclude that decision-makers systematically invent their reasons. These studies neither make every explanation suspect nor demonstrate an intention to deceive. Rather, they show that a sincere, coherent account can be insufficient evidence of the process that led to a decision. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence does not allow us to transfer
Choosing between faces does not reproduce either a hydropower investment or a decision about the organisation of healthcare. The cited studies cannot establish how frequently such reconstructions occur among managers in Sion. In practice, however, a record written only after the decision leaves a question open: were the stated criteria already present before the choice?
A practical check in Sion
Within SHR's « Prise de décision » programme, an exercise in Sion could address a non-clinical healthcare decision, hydropower maintenance, vineyard equipment or a purchase for alpine tourism. Before deciding, each manager records the criteria, their priority order and the available information in a dated document; afterwards, they write their explanation without altering that document. The measure is the proportion of reasons given after the choice that already appeared in the prior record, with reasons arising from documented new information recorded separately. This comparison does not prove the mental causes of the choice, but makes the continuity between stated criteria and final justification verifiable. To go further: explore the Decision-making training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Decision-making in Sion
- decision-making
- Sion
- research
- training sion