A good rule of thumb: for the most part, people (even you! even me!) are incapable of identifying the actual causes of their opinions. Asking them will yield many interesting stories, but rarely the actual cause.
Reposted from
Kevin Collins
I think this is a reflection of the fundamental difficulty in getting interviewees -- whether in a survey or an in depth interview as here -- to provide causal narratives for their own beliefs, especially when those beliefs are overdetermined.
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They showed folks nylon stockings (in random position) & asked them to say which was higher quality. Most ppl (4:1) picked the one on the right but when asked why, they came up w all sorts of reasons. Also this: