I still think this doesn't always tell you any more useful information than the conscious reasons...a confabulation is not necessarily wrong
OK, so let's say it tells you that the useful information that you get from your consciousness is only 10% (semi-random number) of relevant information. It's not that it provides useful information to outweigh the conscious information, it just contextualizes it into being less important, even if it is most of the important information you have. So it should greatly reduce confidence, and affect decisions related to that.
Let's say out of a group of 20 people you knew well, one was going to construct two teams to compete in an activity, say soccer. If I told you a random member of each team, you could predict which team would be more likely to win, but your confidence would be less than if I told you all the members on each team. This is so even though the information you know (one player per team) does more for you than that you don't know (the players who are evenly distributed).
Let's consider the right-side bias you presented. This is a good example because obviously nothing intrinsic to the clothing improves if you place it on someone's right, and yet people overwhelmingly chose the item on the right (and they got the reason for this wrong). Yet I have questions about the applicability of this to everyday decisions. For example, how much stronger is this specific bias than conscious factors? If instead of being presented with identical items, the items are different, would this bias still be relevant?
It is certainly possible that when presented with nearly identical items, people prefer the one on the right, but when presented with very different items, they all else equal do not. It is also possible there are few such effects and they are swamped by conscious ones. However, I see no evidence the effect is limited to similar items, I think there are many such effects, and an analogy to natural selection is applicable - it hardly matters for a rabbit's reproductive success whether it is a bit furrier or less furry than other rabbits, a bit bigger or a bit smaller, etc., but with many small effects occurring, the small effects add up.
Is this factor also based on research, or just a hypothetical scenario? Am I missing something obvious? I know of claims that colors affect emotion, but am unaware of claims that current emotions affect color choice
Based on research indicating that they effect emotion, I assume they probably effect choice absent having seen any study on point.
besides attempting to achieve satisfaction?
I was thinking primarily of things broadly categorizable as negative motivation - physical discomfort, emotional fear, self-sabotage to have an excuse for later failure, etc.
Still, I find it necessary to be suspicious of both. I have a relative lack of knowledge in the field of psychology and neuroscience...I need to closely evaluate the available evidence for those statements.
We apparently have very different priors. If basically "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", whereas subconscious processes would not have me conscious of them, I don't consider my unawareness of them as extraordinary. Being convinced some occur, it is not hard to convince me that it's likely various specific ones occur.
How would giving more weight when there is evidence for a reason
I'm trying to be meticulous about giving my knowns no more weight than necessary. If I am mapping 100 contiguous acres, and I know 10 acres have gardens, and know nothing about 90 acres, my estimate that the 90 unknown acres all have gardens is far less than 100%. If I am mapping an unknown number of acres, and I know 10 acres have gardens, and know nothing about the rest, my estimate that the unknown acres all have gardens is far less than 100%.
I consider the present search for subconscious influences to be far from exhaustive, and estimate there is much more out there. As is I consider the conscious influences to be pretty low. So regarding them, even if I know a lot more about them than anything else, when I consider the total of why I decided as I did, they are not predominantly important - it's as if I knew one soccer player on each team, with each team having 5 to 50 players, that being unknown (but the same for each team). My prediction about who would win would be pretty much entirely based on the known player, but my confidence would be low because I know I have only a small proportion of the relevant information.
Related to: Humans are not automatically strategic, Rationalists should win
Fashion isn't prioritized in many hyper-analytical circles. Many in these communities write it off as frill and unnecessary. They say they "just dress comfortably" and leave it at that.
To me, that seems like a huge blind spot. It misses a fundamental point -
A piece of clothing is fundamentally a tool.
Definitions are important so everyone is on the same page. I feel like Wikipedia's first sentence on "tool" accurately describes it -
Clothing clearly fits that definition of a tool.
Appropriately chosen clothing can keep you from freezing in the winter, from getting sunburnt in the summer, and can keep you dry in a rainstorm.
It can also help you achieve things involving other people. I think it's fair to draw a distinction between "clothing" and "fashion" based on whether your objectives involve interpersonal skills. If you're wearing clothing in relation to the environment and without other people, that's using clothing as a tool.
But clothing clearly can affect other people's opinions of you, willingness to accept your arguments, willing to hire or contract you, even their desire to associate with you. All of that is changed by clothing - or more specifically, your "fashion."
While most rationalists would happily and quickly plan out the best hiking boots to wear to not get blisters on a hike, or research the best shoes for bicycling or swimsuit for swimming, anecdotally many seem hesitant or even hostile to the idea of using fashion as a tool to achieve their objectives.
That's possibly a mistake.
The thing fashion can do best and most fundamentally is affect a person's initial first impression of you. Fashion is less important if you're in a context where you're guaranteed to get to know someone over a longer period of time, and is more important if you're going to get filtered quickly.
I propose that the most rational usage of fashion is this -
1. Ask yourself what your goals are in the situation you're about to go into.
2. Ask yourself what first impression would help you reach your goals.
3. Pick out and wear clothing that helps communicate that first impression.
The process is important. In isolation, there's no "good fashion" - it depends on your objectives.
In some circles, people more or less won't care how you're dressed. But even then, there's likely some clothing that will perform better than others. If you can afford the time or money to find clothing to fit your objectives, then there's no reason not to utilize this advantage.
I say "time or money" because you can deploy either - if money isn't an issue, there's stores where the majority of things look good, and the people there are professionals who will spend time giving you good feedback. Any high end department store like Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales, or a high end tailor fits this category.
Alternatively, you can deploy time. To do that, survey the people that most effectively communicate the first impression you want to convey. Take actual notes and look for common trends. Then, go find pieces that look similar. You won't be perfect right away, but like any other skill, with practice you'll rapidly improve. Incidentally, the marginal cost to produce clothing is incredibly cheap, so most fashion lines over-produce clothing and have to liquidate it at super-discount sale prices periodically. There tends to be a major "Summer Sale" and "Winter Sale" once per year that have high end clothing that 70% to 90% off, making the cost comprable to the mid-tier.
There's also "Sample Sales" where over-produced items are liquidated or when a designer wants to see the buying public's reaction to their new pieces. Again, ultra-high-end clothing can be purchased at discount rates at these environments. You can get basically any semi-standard piece of high end clothing for not very much money if you put in the time. My strategy in the past has been to wait until finding a great opportunity like that, and then buying 1-2 years worth of clothing in one swoop. It doesn't take much supplementing after that.
It takes very little cognitive energy to begin this process. Next time you see someone who strikes a very good impression, stop and analyze a little bit. Note what they're wearing. If you want to strike that same first impression, go get something comprable. Your fashion will be working for you at that point, and your interpersonal dealings will become easier.