Humans are driven heavily by certain "heuristics and biases". An interesting chapter-length introduction is available at http://www.singinst.org/upload/cognitive-biases.pdf . You'll be surprised at the results, and you'll see that you've fallen victim to many or all of these biases. He cites some books for more info on the subject (but I haven't read them).
Also, check out the excellent blog http://overcomingbias.com . (Warning: the blog has many authors, and some of the posters are more exciting than the others)
This writeup connects with the video recently posted here:
"TED Talk - How to make your consumers happy - Malcom Gladwell (video)" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38839
The talk was also about how people aren't able to say what they want, but it proceeded more in the direction of how to still get useful results from focus groups and surveys. Instead, Paul handles rationalization more generally, in the larger context.
The first makes observations and looks for patterns. "After observing many startups, I've noticed that X is often the case."
The second makes observations and looks for rules. "After observing many startups, I think it's best that founders do X and avoid Y."
The third makes observations and looks for models. "After observing many startups, I've noticed that if you do X you frequently get Y."
(I won't name names.)
Rationality isn't so much a tool as a category of tools. Even among people who are more rational than most, there are still certain thought patterns that we fall back on again and again, even within the sphere of rationality.
As for product design, I can understand treating all people as irrational. After all, all people are sometimes irrational, no one is always irrational, and some people are never rational. It's just a numbers game.
Well, if people actually went for "the most attractive" leader, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao could have been avoided all together.
If you put me on an automotive focus group (and I'd love to be on one) I would simply point out that the 1965 mustang is many, many times better looking than any car in the last 25 years. Hell, the crappy '62 Ford Falcon shares the same characteristic. The first company that puts out a decent looking car today is going to make 50 billion dollars off of it, simply because the market is utterly starved. Hell, put a 4-banger in it--no one really cares about that.
Sure, we're irrational. But even if Molly Housewife and Joe Sixpack judge people based on good looks, at least their estimations are roughly accurate. GWB is better looking than John Kerry. Who's the idiot: Molly Housewife or the DNC? The republicans went out and looked for "Mr. Electable", while the Democrats looked for...(not the "best")...but the guy with tenure and connections and 3 purple hearts. Very reasonable.
Very thought provoking. And I agree with your conclusions but I get there via a different route that is contradictory to your route at least on a semantic basis.
I like to assume that a person tends to act rationally within his internal mental framework. Even a "crazy" person.
I might have got these ideas from Pirsig's _Lila_ but I'm not sure since I read it a long time ago. Regardless he would break down the framework into categories such as chemical, biological, social and intellectual.
If you want to understand a befuddling person then you need to try to understand the framework within which he is operating.
Understanding the framework of "the mass consumer" is what makes Clotaire Rapaille wealthy. If people didn't operate rationally within such a framework it would not be possible for him to make accurate predictions about consumer preferences.
The more self-aware a person is the more that person consciously understands his own framework. Some people understand their frameworks very well, but many people are totally blind to them. If you talk to people who have these blinders and you take what they say at face value you will have bad data and you will draw bad conclusions.
Another important related factor is that of honesty. Someone who understands his framework well does not necessarily want to reveal it and thus might obfuscate. A person who does not understand his framework might be afraid to say "I don't know" and will spew rationalizations rather than the truth.
How does this relate to your examples?
I don't want to speculate about what is going on in the split-brain case.
Physical attractiveness is recognized by pre-rational parts of the brain (Pirsig's "biological" category). Evolution gave us that ability to help select fertile mates and healthy friends and leaders. Within this evolutionary/biological framework the favors given to an attractive person are completely "rational". The problem with the attractive criminals comes from the court making decisions at the biological level that should be made at the social and intellectual levels.
"The people at Chrysler" must have been dealing with self-unaware people and did not realize that fact. Rapaille knew who he was dealing with and approached the problem by trying to understand the frameworks rather than relying on the people to directly tell him what they want.
The woman with the umbrella likely is not honest. She could not admit, "I don't know what I'm doing with this umbrella." And so she chose to rationalize. Whether or not this was a conscious decision depends on how well she consciously understands her own framework.
(This is the second time in as many days that I've mentioned Pirsig on this site. I don't know why as I've not read or thought about the books in a long time, but it's making me want to reread them!)
Also, check out the excellent blog http://overcomingbias.com . (Warning: the blog has many authors, and some of the posters are more exciting than the others)