COGNITIVE CONFLICTS AFTER AND BEFORE DECISIONS

A classical paradigm of cognitive dissonance concerns the effects of t he decisional context on the after choice rationalizations. In this pa per we interpret some recent experimental results on decision making a s ways of preventing post-decisive cognitive conflicts. First, the foc using effect, i.e. the decision to ignore the possible alternatives, h as the advantage of keeping subjects from comparing the potential disa dvantages of the choice with the potential advantages of the unknown a lternatives. In the choose-reject discrepancy, we avoid post-decisiona l conflicts by forgetting the defects and focusing on advantages when we have to choose, but doing the exact opposite when we have to reject . Third, subjects prefer to postpone the choice when the decision has to be taken under uncertainty, even if they will choose the same optio n once the uncertainty disappears. Subjects also prefer to violate the sure-thing principle but to reduce in advance the possibility of the post-decisional conflict. The paper integrates the Geneva school's con solidated tradition of research on socio-cognitive conflicts with thes e new results obtained in the decision making paradigm.