The next time a friend asks where you want to grab lunch or which movie youād rather see, resist the urge to say, āI have no preferenceāyou choose.āĢż
According to a recent study co-authored by Alix Barasch, an associate professor of marketing at theĢżLeeds School of Business, if you claim indifference, your friend believes you actually do have a preference, youāre just not disclosing it. Further, your perceived caginess makes the decision harder for your friendāwho may end up liking you less as a result.
Thatās a lot to unpack, but think about a time when you were forced to be the decision-maker in this scenario. Did you take your friendās āno preferenceā statement at face value?
Generally, āwe donāt believe them,ā Barasch said. āPeople have very well-established preference structures. Itās rare that people donāt have opinions on things and as a result, we assume that when someone says āno preference,ā they do have a preference.ā
The motivations behind not stating a preference are generally positive, the researchers found, but this form of decision-delegating can have a negative effect on the relationship.Ģż
āWe want to be nice or we really donāt care that much, and we think it will make the other personās life easier,ā Barash said. āBut even though weāve all been on both sides, when we think about somebody who has said this to us, we immediately know thatās annoying.ā
The paper, āYou Must Have a Preference: The Impact of No Preference Communication on Joint Decision Making,ā was published in June 2022 in the and involved six studies using real-life and hypothetical decisions.
The researchers, who also included Nicole You Jeung Kim of The Faculty of Business at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Yonat Zwebner of the Arison School of Business at Reichman University in Israel; and Rom Y. Schrift of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, highlighted three consequences of no-preference communication.
āFirst, we find very consistently that it makes the decision harder for the person who has to choose,ā Barasch said. āThis is counterintuitive because if someone says they donāt have a preference and you really believe them, then it should become an individual decision-making processājust choose what you prefer. But if you donāt believe the person, then youāre trying to guess what they want and the choice becomes more difficult.ā
Barasch said the second consequence of showing indifference when asked to state a preference has to do with āsocial utility.āĢż
āIt really just means that youāre liked less. People donāt like people who arenāt honest and donāt share what they really feel. If itās your partner, do you really love them less? No.This is a tiny difference on the margin, but it matters because being annoyed with people has consequences over time,ā she said.
Finally, the third consequence is a ālose-lose scenario,ā Barasch said, where the decision-maker concludes that the other personās preference is likely dissimilar to their own and chooses an option that they themselves like less.
But what if you truly donāt have a preference?
āWhat Iād recommend is to express something even if itās not making the final decision. I think thereās kind of a middle ground where you can narrow it down to a category or rule out one of three options,ā Barasch said. āThe goal here is expressing somethingāgive some signal value that youāre not totally flaky or unable to take any action. You are willing to state an opinion.ā
Barasch acknowledged that it can be difficult when there is a power imbalance in the relationshipāfor example, when your boss asks where youād like to go to lunchābut she advises offering up something. In her own life, Barasch said sheās increasingly using the ānarrowing-down tactic.ā
Beyond interpersonal relationships, the studyās implications in the corporate realm could include managers exploring new ways of prompting people to speak up or to do so anonymously. Streaming services could incorporate a feature that facilitates joint decision-making āwithout having to force this awkward exchange,ā Barasch said. She added that for companies, the challenge is āhow to get people to express real preferences and real opinions.ā
Still hung up on the finding that youāll be liked less for refusing to state a preference? The researchers tested whether the feelings of dislike come from the decision difficulty or the disbelief.Ģż
āIt comes from the disbelief,ā Barasch said. āIt comes from the suspicion that youāre not revealing your true preferences, not from the difficulty of making the decision. Whatās good about that is if you express no preference and it comes across genuinely, then yes, the personās decision is still more difficult but it doesnāt make them like you less.ā