Although choices can occur after careful deliberation, many everyday choices are usually effortless and are guided by intuitive thinking. The current research examines the implications of the interplay between these two types of processes for context effects in choice by exploring the consequences of the depletion of executive resources in a prior, unrelated task. Building on a substantial body of psychological literature that points to a single underlying resource used for self-regulation and executive control, this article demonstrates that resource depletion has a systematic influence on choice in context.
A central assumption of this investigation is that the same limited resource is used for self-regulation as for making decisions because of the important role of the executive control processes in overriding intuitive responses. The common finding across five experiments is that resource depletion decreases people’s ability to engage in effortful and deliberative processing, leaving the decision maker with only simpler decision strategies on which to rely. Study 1 shows that depleted participants are more sensitive to deviations from a reference point when making their choices. In Studies 2 and 3, depleted participants are less likely than control participants to integrate multiple dimensions of value and select a compromise option. In Studies 4 and 5, depleted participants are especially likely to be swayed by the “decoy” (the dominated option) in the attraction effect.
Beyond demonstrating the effect of prior exertion of the self on choice, the results provide important evidence for the processes underlying choice in context. In particular, resource depletion leads to an increase in context effects, which arise from simple intuitive processing, but decreases the biases that stem from careful trade-off evaluations. Therefore, by examining whether resource depletion leads to an increase (decrease) of a particular effect, this article sheds some light on the mechanism underlying this effect. The empirical evidence shows that the choice of a compromise option stems from more effortful and careful processing and is not a result of a simplifying heuristic. In contrast, the attraction effect is rooted in simpler automatic processing and may indeed be a perceptual effect—the dominating alternative just seems so much better. Finally, that reference-dependent choice is relatively effortless and intuitive form of choosing.
Because depletion has been shown to stem from everyday activities, such as making a series of choices involving difficult trade-offs, marketers might find themselves dealing with customers who are already depleted and thus should expect more simplified processing in such situations. This is of particular importance when customers are required to make a sequence of decisions. In addition, the results bear directly on many marketing efforts that employ different contexts to influence consumer decision making. For example, emphasizing a particular reference point might be more effective when consumers are unable (e.g., time constrained) or are not motivated to apply effortful processing strategies (e.g., low involvement purchases). However, positioning an option or a brand in the middle as a compromise is likely to be more effective when customers are able and motivated to consider carefully the choice at hand (e.g., when purchasing a high-ticket item).
Biography
Anastasiya Pocheptsova is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. She uses psychological and economic principles to explain how consumers form preferences to understand and predict their behavior. Her primary research focus is on the role of emotions and memory processes in consumer judgment and choice.
On Amir is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego. He received his PhD in Management Science and Marketing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He studies the behavioral effects of pricing and promotions, the evolution and dynamics of preferences and choices, and the mechanisms underlying consumer decision making. He has published in the Journal of Marketing Research and Marketing Science.
Ravi Dhar is George Rogers Clark Professor of Management and Marketing and the director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management. Ravi also has an affiliated appointment as Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. His research awards include the William F. O’Dell Award and an honorable mention for the John A. Howard/AMA Doctoral Dissertation Award. His other research has also been a finalist for the Paul Green Award and a finalist for the O’Dell award. He has written more than 40 articles and serves on the editorial boards of leading marketing journals, such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research (area editor), and Marketing Science (area editor), among other journals.
Roy F. Baumeister is the Eppes Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, where he is head of the social psychology graduate program. He received his PhD in Experimental Social Psychology from Princeton in 1978. He has nearly 400 publications on various research areas, including self-regulation, decision making, emotion, belongingness and social rejection, self-esteem, self-deception, aggression, sexuality, and how people find meaning in life. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Templeton Foundation.
J Marketing Research, Volume 46, Number 3, June 2009
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