What makes us who we are?

A choice is always emotional. A choice is either towards pleasure or away from pain.
Without it we would be unable to make decisions.
We like what gives us good feelings and dislike what gives us bad feelings

What we like or dislike is an emotional response. When we have a sensory input (see, hear, feel, smell or taste) the emotional response to it is activated before the thought 'I like it' or 'I feel afraid' etc.

So, as you say we like the things that give us a good feeling and dislike those that give us a bad feeling. Often what we try to do is justify, or rationalize the feeling, which gives us a greater sense of being in control of our emotions.

Research was carried out asking people to make a rational choice on a car purchase against criteria. People found this very hard to and tended to resort to the emotional response. Making a more rational choice was easier if people had less information on which to make the choice. This is about making a choice, not liking or disliking!

Whether someone likes or dislikes you is linked to how you make the other person feel, not a reflection of you. Some people like green, others like blue; it's not a reflection of either color being dislike-able.

what you're asking is a question pondered upon by philosophers and now being researched by scientists...

lets take a system, a system which produces certain output based on certain initial conditions (ie the initial input).
e.g a system model of f(x)= 2*x+4 has an output of 8 with an input of 2
a system of water on stove boils quickly when the water is warm than when its initially ice cold.

the problem is, the mind is such a complex entity (consider its single processing unit, a neuron, initiating the firing mechanism of thousands of other neurons.. and there are billions of neurons to begin with... the number permutations and combinations are immense)... that the conventional methods of system analysis get impractical.. even the traditional black box approach doesnt work because the output of the black box (the brain), along with the input, is also dependent upon its internal state which is unknowable(considering it as a black box), and that internal state gets changed with every input in an unknown fashion.. and hence they still wonder, how does the human conscience takes its shape (they know where it is located in the brain though).

conclusion: if you can read through the above post and can understand it, then i dont know whats in your black box but it surely is something awesome! :P

I think the one word answer to that question will be 'experience'... Whatever we like or dislike is based on what kind of emotions we felt while experiencing it. Like for example, when I first tasted tea and I didn't liked the taste this is why I will say that I don't like tea at all. But then we also shape ourselves according to the environment we live in and peer pressures to fit in any community. Now even though I didn't liked the taste of tea but everyone around me loves it and its kind of part of our culture, Hence next time I will hesitate to admit that I didn't liked it..

I hope I made some sense here :)

Interesting question. Although, I am not sure, if I would be able to answer it accordingly or not. I guess, its because all human beings are meant to be unique in one way or the other. Some of the times, its experience, even society, culture all matters. But, I think the main reason for why we have difference of choices is, so that there can be more variety or may be so that there can be more in life as well. If everybody starts liking the same colors or same type of food, there will be monotony and life will become dull. So, may be there is variation to make us move and explore more.