John Homer Promotion Portfolio

July 7, 2014

Abstract: Can There Be Too Much Choice? Empirical Explorations of Theoretical Predictions

Filed under: — John Homer @ 12:47 pm

The too much choice effect sprang up as a counter to the notion that more options to choose from is always better. This counter-intuitive finding was quite surprising to the fields of psychology, marketing, and economics, particularly at their intersection in human decision making. While the initial observation of the effect (Iyengar & Lepper, 2000) was well-heralded – even resulting in a popular press publication called “The Paradox of Choice” (Schwartz, 2005) – independent replications of the effect were rather rare and a large meta-analysis of the literature suggested that no such effect actually existed (Scheibehenne, Greifeneder, & Todd, 2010). Hence, many researchers have doubts concerning whether or not the effect is real. Furthermore, Iyengar and Lepper (2000) proposed very little justification for the too much choice effect other than that it is ‘demotivating’. Jessup, Veinott, Todd, and Busemeyer (2009) used simulations to test three psychological explanations for the too much choice effect: (1) lead change, (2) time out, and (3) no choice as its own option. For the simulations, all three explanations were implemented into a mathematical model of choice called decision field theory (Busemeyer & Townsend, 1993) that models choice as a dynamic and stochastic deliberative process. The first two explanations both predicted that the too much choice effect should occur but in different situations. Our goal was to empirically test the predictions made by decision field theory.

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