Choice Induced Preference Change in Children and Monkeys

In the choice condition, children strongly preferred the toy in the second stocking. In the no choice condition, remember this is the one where the experimenter picks for the kid, the kid doesn't get to pick themself and the effect vanished. This suggests that our choices may influence our preferences at a fairly primal level. Once one of two options is denied you by an outside force, the deny option is not only not despised, it's coveted. You want that thing that you were told you couldn't have.