Barbara Fasolo

Escaping the tyranny of choice: when fewer attributes make choice easier

In the age of the Internet and easy access to almost infinite information, the problem of information overload among consumers is bound to become of great importance to marketers. By means of simulations we show that this ‘tyranny of choice’ is avoidable. Consumers can neglect most product information and yet make good choices, so long as either there is no conflict among the product attributes or the attributes are unequally important. In these conditions, only one attribute is enough to select a good option - one within ten percent of the highest value possible. We conclude with marketing implications of these findings.

New tools for decision analysts

This paper presents psychological research that can help people make better decisions. Decision analysts typically: 1) elicit outcome probabilities; 2) assess attribute weights; and 3) suggest the option with the highest overall value. Decision analysis can be challenging because of environmental and psychological issues. Fast and frugal methods such as natural frequency formats, frugal multiattribute models, and fast and frugal decision trees can address these issues. Not only are the methods fast and frugal, but they can also produce results that are surprisingly close to or even better than those obtained by more extensive analysis. Apart from raising awareness of these findings among engineers, the authors also call for further research on the application of fast and frugal methods to decision analysis

Behavioural decision theory for multi-criteria decision analysis : a guided tour

Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) involves asking decision makers difficult questions, and can leave them thinking that their judgements are not as coherent as they might have thought. This experience can be distressing and may even lead to rejection of the analysis. The psychology of preference sheds light both on how people naturally make choices without decision analytic assistance, and on how people think about the MCDA elicitation questions. As such, it can help the analyst to respond helpfully to difficulties which decision makers may face. In this paper, we review research from Behavioural Decision Theory relevant to MCDA. Our review follows the MCDA process, discussing research relevant to the structuring, value elicitation, and weighting phases of the analysis, outlining relevant and important findings, and open questions for research and practice.

Structuring decision problems: A case study and reflections for practitioners

This article reviews several approaches to problem structuring and, in particular, the three-step structuring process for decision analysis proposed by von Winterfeldt and Edwards: (1) identifying the problem; (2) selecting an appropriate analytical approach; (3) developing the a detailed analytic structure. This three-step process is re-examined in the context of a decision analysis of alternative policies to reduce electromagnetic field exposure from electric power lines. This decision analysis was conducted for a public health organization funded by the California Public Utilities Commission and it was scrutinized throughout by interested stakeholders. As a result a significant effort went into structuring this problem appropriately, with some successes and some missteps. The article extracts lessons from this experience, updating existing guidance on structuring problems for decision analysis, and concluding with some general insights for problem structuring.

Is quantitative benefit–risk modelling of drugs desirable or possible?

Preliminary research results with drug regulators in several European Agencies show that quantitative models developed with groups of assessors and specialists can integrate scientific data with expert value judgements, thereby extending the capabilities of regulators, and stimulating new insights about key trade-offs. As a result, the rationale for the benefit–risk balance becomes more transparent, communicable and consistent.

“Shopping” for a Mate: Expected versus Experienced Preferences in Online Mate Choice

Modern communication technology has greatly increased the number of options we can choose among in a variety of evolutionarily important domains, from housing to food to mates. But is this greater choice beneficial? To find out, we ran two experimental studies to examine the effects of increasing option set-size on anticipated and experienced choice perceptions in the modern context of online mate choice. While participants expected greater enjoyment, increased satisfaction, and less regret when choosing from larger (versus smaller) sets of prospective partners (at least up to a point; Study 1), participants presented with a supposedly ideal number of options experienced no improvement in affect and showed more memory confusions regarding their choice than did those participants presented with fewer options (Study 2). Participants correctly anticipated that greater choice would yield increasing costs, but they overestimated the point at which this would occur. We offer an evolutionary-cognitive framework within which to understand this misperception, discuss factors that may make it difficult for decision-makers to correct for it, and suggest ways in which dating websites could be designed to help users choose from large option sets.

The relationship between number of potential mates and mating skew in humans

In nonhuman animal mate choice, a small number of (usually male) options typically leads to an unequal distribution of selections (usually by females) across the options, indicating adaptive choice; conversely, an increasing number of mate options typically yields less inequality of choices across the options. We examined mating skew, a measure of this inequality in mating choices, among humans by considering the offers made by participants in 118 speed-dating sessions of various sizes. Overall, the relationship between a number of indices of mating skew and option set size (the number of opposite-sex participants in the speed-dating session) was positive, with larger sessions producing more mate choice inequality. This result contrasts with the negative relationship between skew and option set size found in nonhuman animals. We interpret these results as the outcome of similar choice mechanisms but different cues used by humans versus other species when making a choice from an abundance of mates.

Individual differences in adaptive choice strategies

Abstract Individual differences in compensatory and non-compensatory choice processes remain an unresolved issue for decision process researchers. This study investigates the stability and nature of individual differences in choice processes when individuals adapt to changes in the structure of the choice environment, namely the correlation among the choice attributes. By means of process tracing techniques, between-subjects differences in choice processing (option-based or attribute based) were found to be stable across different tasks. Individuals with higher openness to experience and ability to solve reasoning tasks were found to be more adaptive, that is to switch more promptly their choice process in adaptive ways, by using more option-based search strategies when attributes were negatively related. These results suggest that insight into individual differences in choice processes can be gained when attention is given to the structure of the choice task and to how decision makers adapt to it in the course of the choice task.

Behavioural issues in portfolio decision analysis

The aim of this chapter is to review some behavioural issues in portfolio choice and resource allocation decisions, with a focus on their relevance to Portfolio Decision Analysis. We survey some of behavioural literature on the most common heuristics and biases that arise in and can interfere with resource allocation processes. The common idea behind this behavioural literature is that of cognitive or motivational failure as an explanation for the violation of normative models. Then, we reflect on the relevance of this literature by drawing from the authors’ personal experiences as decision maker or decision analyst in real world resource allocation settings. We argue that justifiability can also be a reason for the normative violations. We conclude by discussing ways in which an analyst might approach debiasing.

Who Is in Your Shopping Cart? Expected and Experienced Effects of Choice Abundance in the Online Dating Context

The advent of the Internet has led to a sizeable increase in the number of options from which humans can choose, in such evolutionarily important domains as housing, food and mates . The level of choice and the amount of information seen on the Internet are well beyond that which would have been found in our ancestral choice environment ; so how does it impact our decisions? We describe the results of two experiments in which we examine the influence of increasing online mate choice on expected and experienced choice-related affect and cognitions. In Study 1, participants merely expecting an increasing choice of mates believed they would enjoy choosing more from these sets and would have greater satisfaction and less regret with their chosen partner (vs. when they expected to face limited choice), but only up to a point. On the other hand, participants in Study 2 who experienced a supposedly ideal number of potential mates from whom to choose did not have enhanced feelings about the choice process and person selected than did participants experiencing a more limited number of options. Furthermore, the results indicated that having more choice may lead to memory confusion . Together, these studies suggest that while participants anticipate that increasing choice may ultimately yield more downsides than upsides, they underestimate how quickly increasing choice can become overwhelming. We propose that these results may be understood best within the context of an evolutionary–cognitive framework . The chapter concludes by discussing why the error in anticipation may be difficult to overcome and, further, how the design of dating Web sites could be improved, given people’s expectations.