How much choice is "good enough"? Moderators of information and choice overload

In today’s world, people face an abundance of information and a great number of choices both in important domains, such as health care, retirement, and education, and in less important domains, such as the choice of breakfast cereal or chocolate. Choice overload and information overload have strong negative effects on many important decision- making aspects such as processing and using information, the motivation to act, the quality of choices, and post- choice feelings, which are discussed in Chapter 43 in this volume in more detail. However, small choice and information sets are not always optimal either. Several variables– – such as information usage, decision accuracy, motivation to cho…

Il processo decisionale online: rassegna di studi empirici e confronto tra Siti Internet per l'Aiuto alle Decisioni negli Stati Uniti e in Europa

With the advent of the Internet, decision making researchers have extended their research scope from traditional "offline" contexts to the increasingly more common "online" decision environment. At the same time, on the Web an increasing number of "decision-facilitating websites" have appeared - spaces finalized to help users make "online" decisions. In the present work we a) present and discuss the most important decision facilitating websites; b) review the main results obtained by the fledgling field of Web-based decision research.

PROBLEMI DOVUTI ALL’AMBIENTE DECISIONALE

Choose as many as you wish: Consumer satisfaction and purchase rate increase when choice from large assortments is flexible as opposed to constrained

Five studies across a range of domains show that consumers who can choose as many alternatives as they wish (“flexible choice”), report more positive affective states and purchase more than those who have to choose a pre-defined quantity of products (“constrained” choice). The benefits of choice “flexibility” are stronger in large than small assortments, and are replicated in field and laboratory settings: when people chose cookies after a meal in a restaurant, possible dating partners on a simulated dating website, energy bars from descriptions, and soaps for personal use. The findings have theoretical implications for advancing choice-overload research, as well as practical implications f…

Il Consumo Elettronico

Cognitive and Affective Consequences of Information and Choice Overload

When interviewed in 1992 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Nobel laureate Herbert Simon described a paradox at the heart of living in an economy that made every effort to design and produce ever more “choice alternatives” but that simultaneously allocated very little energy to encouraging people to devote the attention and time actually required to choose. He gave the example of a decision to buy a new house, commenting: “Before you even start the choice process, somebody has presented you with this, and this, and this house” (UBS, 1992). The overabundance of alternatives was lamented by Simon in 1992, when computing power was slower. It is all the more alarming in the modern and constantly …

The attraction effect in an online shopping environment