Less may be more when choosing is difficult: Choice complexity and too much choice

Greifeneder, Rainer; Scheibehenne, Benjamin; Kleber, Nina

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2009.08.005

Cited by 107 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…6 Importantly, psychologists have also offered considerable insight into information choice behaviors (Fischer, Schulz-Hardt, and Frey 2008;Fischer et al 2011;Greifeneder, Scheibehenne, and Kleber 2010;Scheibehenne, Greifeneder, and Todd 2010;Malhotra 1982).…”

Section: Information and Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Informational Basis for Mass Polarization

Leeper

2014

Public Opinion Quarterly

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If nothing else, democratic politics requires compromise. Mass polarization, where citizens disagree strongly and those disagreements magnify over time, presents obvious threats to democratic well-being. The overwhelming presumption is that if polarization is occurring, a substantial portion of it is attributable to fragmentation attendant an increasingly choice-laden media environment where individuals expose themselves only to opinion-reinforcing information. Under what conditions does mass opinion polarization occur? Through two over-time, laboratory experiments involving information choice behavior, this paper considers, first, the effects of slant in one's information environment on over-time opinion dynamics and, second, the moderating role of attitude importance on those effects. The experiments reveal that, despite similar information search behavior, those with strong attitudes are dogmatic, resisting even substantial contrary evidence; those with weak attitudes by contrast hear opposing arguments and develop moderate opinions regardless of the prevalence of those arguments in their environment. Evaluations of information, rather than information search behavior per se, explain why individuals with strong attitudes polarize and those with weak attitudes do not. Polarization therefore seems to require more than media fragmentation and, in fact, a more important factor may be the strength of citizens' prior attitudes on particular issues.If nothing else, democratic politics requires compromise. Mass polarization, where citizens disagree strongly and those disagreements magnify over time, therefore seems to present obvious threats to democratic well-being. Political science has demonstrated a modulating, though frequently uneasy, view of political polarization. This ambivalence reflects the ap- 1 party contrast without mass polarization.1 Just a decade later, McClosky, Hoffmann, and O'Hara (1960) demonstrated that the two-party system offered clear differences between parties without undesirable polarization.2 In more recent times, McClosky, Hoffmann, and O'Hara's assessment of American politics seems to resonate much more with the conclusion drawn by Fiorina and Abrams (2008) that "the American public as a whole is no more polarized today than it was a generation ago" (584) than with the contemporary observation by Hetherington (2001) that "Greater ideological polarization in Congress has clarified public perceptions of party ideology, which has produced a more partisan electorate" (629), but the polarization literature is still growing (see, for example, Levendusky 2009Levendusky , 2010Levendusky , 2011Stroud 2011;Carmines and Ensley 2004).The overwhelming presumption is that if polarization is occurring, a substantial portion of that polarization is attributable to the fragmentation attendant an increasingly choice- which is necessary to avoid faulty ecological inferences about opinion dynamics (Druckman 1 "If the two parties do not develop alternative programs that can be executed, the voter's frustrat...

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Section: Information and Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Informational Basis for Mass Polarization

Leeper

2014

Public Opinion Quarterly

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“…As examples, choices over many options have been shown to lead to forgoing decisions or choosing simpler options (Chernev, 2003;Greifeneder, Scheibehenne, & Kleber, 2010;Iyengar & Kamenica, 2010;Iyengar & Lepper, 2000;Reutskaja & Hogarth, 2009;Schwartz, 2004;Shah & Wolford, 2007). In addition to arguments based on regret and satisfaction (e.g., Iyengar & Lepper, 2000;Schwartz, 2004), the predominant explanation for choice overload effects has been information overload (e.g., Jacoby, Speller, & Kohn, 1974;Lee & Lee, 2004;Schwartz, 2004).…”

Section: Information Overload and Choice Order Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information overload or search-amplified risk? Set size and order effects on decisions from experience

Hills

Noguchi

Gibbert³

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

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How do changes in choice-set size influence information search and subsequent decisions? Moreover, does information overload influence information processing with larger choice sets? We investigated these questions by letting people freely explore sets of gambles before choosing one of them, with the choice sets either increasing or decreasing in number for each participant (from two to 32 gambles). Set size influenced information search, with participants taking more samples overall, but sampling a smaller proportion of gambles and taking fewer samples per gamble, when set sizes were larger. The order of choice sets also influenced search, with participants sampling from more gambles and taking more samples overall if they started with smaller as opposed to larger choice sets. Inconsistent with information overload, information processing appeared consistent across set sizes and choice order conditions, reliably favoring gambles with higher sample means. Despite the lack of evidence for information overload, changes in information search did lead to systematic changes in choice: People who started with smaller choice sets were more likely to choose gambles with the highest expected values, but only for small set sizes. For large set sizes, the increase in total samples increased the likelihood of encountering rare events at the same time that the reduction in samples per gamble amplified the effect of these rare events when they occurred-what we call search-amplified risk. This led to riskier choices for individuals whose choices most closely followed the sample mean.Keywords Information overload . Decisions from experience . Risk . Choice overload . Consumer behavior From what we wear to how we entertain ourselves, we are constantly choosing among sets of alternatives. It is as if our lives are merely extended department store experiences, where we commonly make hundreds of choices before we reach the checkout aisle. Although these decisions often rely on past experience-for which there is ample literature

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“…In the experiment by Scheibehenne et al (2009) on choices among charities, we combined the two large assortments with 40 and 80 options into one large set. For the experiments by Greifeneder (2008), Greifeneder, Scheibehenne, and Kleber (2010), Lenton and Stewart (2007), and Söllner and Newell (2009), we contrasted the small condition with the large condition and discarded the medium condition. For seven experiments in which authors reported only approximate statistical indices to indicate negligible effects (e.g., p 1 .1 or p p NS) and the detailed data could not be retrieved, we followed the suggestion of Rosenthal and DiMatteo (2001) and assigned an effect size of zero (the respective data points are marked in table 1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload

Scheibehenne¹,

Greifeneder²,

Todd³

2010

J Consum Res

Self Cite

795

503

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The choice overload hypothesis states that an increase in the number of options to choose from may lead to adverse consequences such as a decrease in the motivation to choose or the satisfaction with the finally chosen option. A number of studies found strong instances of choice overload in the lab and in the field, but others found no such effects or found that more choices may instead facilitate choice and increase satisfaction. In a meta-analysis of 63 conditions from 50 published and unpublished experiments (N p 5,036), we found a mean effect size of virtually zero but considerable variance between studies. While further analyses indicated several potentially important preconditions for choice overload, no sufficient conditions could be identified. However, some idiosyncratic moderators proposed in single studies may still explain when and why choice overload reliably occurs; we review these studies and identify possible directions for future research.

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Less may be more when choosing is difficult: Choice complexity and too much choice

Cited by 107 publications

References 30 publications

The Informational Basis for Mass Polarization

The Informational Basis for Mass Polarization

Information overload or search-amplified risk? Set size and order effects on decisions from experience

Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload

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