Choice Supportive Bias Causes You to Defend Your Choices

Those two theories explain how fanboyism starts, but the real clincher is choice supportive bias. This is our tendency to retroactively give positive attributes to the option we picked. Essentially, it's why we'll defend what we purchased without any real critical thought. Choice supportive bias is a huge player in fanboyism and you'll often go so far as to create false, positive memories about a product just to support your view. You Are Not So Smart gives this example of how choice supportive bias works: You have several options, like say for a new television. Before you make a choice you tend to compare and contrast all the different qualities of all the televisions on the market. Which is better, Samsung or Sony, plasma or lcd, 1080p or 1080i—ugh, so many variables! You eventually settle on one option, and after you make your decision you then look back and rationalize your actions by believing your television was the best of all the televisions you could have picked. We do this to combat buyer's remorse and the anxiety that comes with it. The downside is that when we start justifying our choices, we do it loudly to anyone who will listen so we don't question ourselves. Essentially, once you've made your choice, you have to defend that choice to yourself and in a lot of cases that defense seeps into your conversations. Thus is born a Nintendon't generation.