TY - JOUR
T1 - The Cost of Richness
T2 - The Effect of the Size and Diversity of Decision Sets on Post-Decision Regret
AU - Sagi, Adi
AU - Friedland, Nehemia
PY - 2007/10
Y1 - 2007/10
N2 - Decision making is often made difficult by the knowledge that one has to live with the outcomes of one's choices and with the regret that these might engender. Formal theories propose that regret is proportional to the difference between the outcome of the option chosen and the expected outcome of the next best alternative that one may have chosen instead. It follows that the number of alternatives available for choice does not affect post-decisional regret. In this study, however, the authors proposed that regret is related to the comparison between the alternative chosen and the union of the positive attributes of the alternatives rejected. This general proposition yielded 2 hypotheses: (a) the larger number of alternatives from which one can choose and (b) the more diverse those alternatives are, the stronger the regret that an unsatisfactory choice would cause. These hypotheses were tested and supported by 4 experiments.
AB - Decision making is often made difficult by the knowledge that one has to live with the outcomes of one's choices and with the regret that these might engender. Formal theories propose that regret is proportional to the difference between the outcome of the option chosen and the expected outcome of the next best alternative that one may have chosen instead. It follows that the number of alternatives available for choice does not affect post-decisional regret. In this study, however, the authors proposed that regret is related to the comparison between the alternative chosen and the union of the positive attributes of the alternatives rejected. This general proposition yielded 2 hypotheses: (a) the larger number of alternatives from which one can choose and (b) the more diverse those alternatives are, the stronger the regret that an unsatisfactory choice would cause. These hypotheses were tested and supported by 4 experiments.
KW - choice
KW - number of alternatives
KW - regret
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=35448974476&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1037/0022-3514.93.4.515
DO - 10.1037/0022-3514.93.4.515
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontojournal.article???
AN - SCOPUS:35448974476
SN - 0022-3514
VL - 93
SP - 515
EP - 524
JO - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
IS - 4
ER -