Do we choose what we like, or come to like what we choose?

Such decisions may feel minor, but research co-authored by RMIT University Vietnam Digital Marketing lecturer Dr Jasper Teow suggests that the way people frame their decisions can shape what they later feel they prefer.

The paper, published in the ABDC A*-ranked Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, examined how decisions framed as choosing or rejecting can influence post-decision preferences.

Across 13 preregistered experiments involving nearly 10,000 participants in North America and Asia, the research found that when people framed a decision between attractive options as rejecting one option, they later showed a stronger preference gap between the option they kept and the option they discarded.

In other words, saying “no” to an option may sometimes make consumers feel that the remaining option is more personally meaningful and a greater reflection of their identity.

According to Dr Teow, this matters because consumers are constantly filtering alternatives in everyday digital environments, from e-commerce platforms and food delivery apps to streaming services and social media feeds.

While the study did not directly test popular platforms in Vietnam such as Shopee or TikTok, the findings may help explain familiar digital behaviours. When a shopper scrolls through dozens of products and dismisses many of them before selecting one, those acts of rejection may contribute to how strongly the final choice is later valued. Similarly, repeatedly skipping certain types of content may make people feel more certain about what they prefer to watch.

“Consumers may not always know what they want in advance. Sometimes decisions help create preferences,” Dr Teow said.

The research has important implications for digital platform design. Small design choices, such as whether an app asks users to “choose”, “skip”, or “remove” options, may influence later preference judgements as well as immediate behaviour.

The findings may also offer useful considerations for public communication in areas such as sustainability, technology adoption, consumer protection, and health communication – an area being explored by researchers in the Digital Marketing discipline at RMIT Vietnam.

According to Dr Hoang Ai Phuong, Senior Program Manager of Digital Marketing, public health communication campaigns often focus on encouraging people to choose the right behaviour. But in many cases, the first step may be helping people reject the fears, myths, and misconceptions that stop them from acting.

“In blood donation campaigns, for example, communication is about more than encouraging people to donate,” Dr Phuong said. “It can also help people reject the fear, hesitation, and misinformation that stop them from acting, while also seeing blood donation as an act of care, responsibility, and community support.”

The same principle can also apply to sustainability communication. For example, campaigns asking people to “reject plastic waste” may work differently from campaigns asking people to “choose sustainable products”. Rejection framing may make a behaviour feel more closely connected to identity, such as “I am the kind of person who avoids waste” or “I do not support unnecessary plastic.”

Moreover, it may apply to emerging priorities such as the transition to electric vehicles. For some consumers, switching to an EV may involve more than choosing a new vehicle. It may also involve moving away from older habits, such as reliance on petrol, high-emission transport, or traditional assumptions about what a “proper” vehicle should be.

However, Dr Teow cautioned that rejection framing should be applied carefully.

“Framing behaviours as something to reject can make decisions feel more personal and moral,” he said. “That can be useful in some contexts, but it can also backfire if people feel judged, pressured, or attacked.”

As Vietnam’s economy and consumer landscape continue to evolve, people are making more decisions than ever before, often quickly and across many digital touchpoints. Understanding how these small decisions accumulate can help businesses, policymakers, and public communicators design better experiences, while helping individuals become more aware of how their habits influence what they come to believe they like.

“In the end, preferences may not be as fixed as we assume. Sometimes, we don’t just choose what we like, we come to like what we choose, especially after we have said ‘no’ to everything else,” said Dr Teow.

Story: Ngoc Hoang

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Masthead image: Jo Panuwat D – stock.adobe.com