Testing the tyranny of too much choice against the allure of more choice

Chris M. White · Ulrich Hoffrage

60 citations0/0 files storedPsychology and Marketing

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies

Abstract

Abstract When choosing among several options, people often defer choice. Previous research found that choice deferral can increase and/or decrease as the number of available options increases. To understand these contradictory findings, the assumption was made that people may defer choice for either of two reasons. The number of deferrals made in a controlled laboratory experiment that were inferred to be due to no options being good enough, decreased as the number of options increased. In contrast, the number of deferrals inferred to be due to there being uncertainty regarding which option was the best, increased. Observing these two effects simultaneously helps to explain the inconsistent results observed in previous research. It is also shown that these assumptions can account for the various relationships previously observed between the size of the choice set and the probability of choice deferral. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 60 citations exist upstream.

References

1979Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk 1988Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk 1955A BEHAVIORAL MODEL OF RATIONAL CHOICE 2000When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?2000When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?1993Decision field theory: A dynamic-cognitive approach to decision making in an uncertain environment.2002Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice.1990An Evaluation Cost Model of Consideration Sets

Cited by

2009Size, entropy, and density: What is the difference that makes the difference between small and large real‐world assortments?2013Linking Sources of Consumer Confusion to Decision Satisfaction: The Role of Choice Goals 2011The Effect of the Number of Product Subcategories on Perceived Variety and Shopping Experience in an Online Store 2009Leaving the store empty‐handed: Testing explanations for the too‐much‐choice effect using decision field theory 2016The dynamics of deferred decision

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.