FRUIT OR CANDY? EASE OF JUSTIFICATION AS A MODERATOR OF THE EFFECT OF ASSORTMENT SIZE ON CONSUMER CHOICE

Abstract

When going out to eat or to the movies people often struggle to reach a final decision. Within these choices individuals are constantly faced with the dilemma of choosing between vices and virtues.It has been shown that assortment size has an impact on whether consumers make a choice, but does it also influence the kind of options that are chosen?When selecting lunch, one could choose between tasty but unhealthy options, or healthier but less gratifying alternatives (Sela, Berger, & Liu, 2009). So, could a larger menu really make us more prone to choose a salad? Conversely, is there a mechanism which might encourage the selection of more self-indulgent choices?The present paper explores existing work on the influence of assortment size, character of options, and ease of justification in the consumer's decision-making process before providing findings in two experiments. In E1, individuals' decisions were modified by assortment size and character of options while E2 also adds accessible justifications (for choosing vices) created by subjects' prior altruistic decisions.Variety and Decision-MakingThe variety of alternatives shapes consumer in multiple ways. Prior research suggests that larger assortment size in creases satisfaction (Sela et al., 2009). However, while many of the earlier studies on variety argued that more options are better, many current researchers recently highlighted the downsides of much choice (Berger, Draganska, & Simonson, 2007). This stream of research suggests that may become overwhelming and choosing from larger assortments increases difficulty and in some cases even regret (Berger et al., 2007).Decision DifficultyIyengar and Lepper (2000) found empirical evidence for decision difficulty (choice overload) in a study in which the quality of essays decreased if the number of topics students could choose from increased. It is not only the motivation to choose which decreases when facing too many options, but also the overall satisfaction. Too many alternatives cause distress. As a result, decision making becomes hard, almost unbearable. This argument is later strengthened by Scheibehenne, Greifeneder and Todd (2010) in their meta-analytic review of overload (a collection of 50 published and unpublished studies), which explains that facing too many options to choose from ultimately decreases the motivation to choose any of them.Necessary Preconditions of Choice OverloadResearchers who focused on overload in the past have commonly argued that negative effects do not always occur but rather depend on certain necessary preconditions. One of these important preconditions is lack of familiarity with, or prior preferences for, items in the assortment (Iyengar & Lepper, 2000).Additionally, Chernev (2003) found that consumers with clear prior preferences prefer to choose from larger assortments. The same author also showed that consumers' probability and satisfaction increased with the number of options to choose from, which is the opposite of overload. Similar results were presented by Mogilner, Rudnick and Iyengar (2008) where a negative relationship between assortment size and satisfaction was only found for those who were relatively less familiar with the domain.For this reason, experiments on overload have typically used options participants were not very familiar with to prevent strong prior preferences for a specific option. If, however, the participants were familiar with some options, it might result in a highly selective search process that would allow them to ignore most of the assortment. This study also used unfamiliar options (relatively unknown brands of sweets in E1, and types of computers in E2) to eliminate this effect.Character of Options and Decision-MakingAnother relevant factor that plays a part in decision-making is the character of options. …