Take It or Leave It: How Choosing versus Rejecting Alternatives Affects Information Processing

Abstract

People can make decisions by choosing or by rejecting alternatives. This research shows that changing a task from choice to rejection makes people more likely to rely on deliberative processing, what we label the task-type effect. To demonstrate this effect, we use a set of established decision biases that can be attenuated under deliberative processing. We show that changing a task from choice to rejection makes people express more consistent preferences between safe and risky options in the Asian disease problem (Study 1A) and in financial decision-making (Study 1B), even with real monetary consequences (Study 1C). Further, switching a task from choice to rejection increases the quality of consideration sets in the context of hotel reviews (Study 2), and leads to more rational decisions in the context of cell phone plan selection (Study 3). Studies 4 and 5 tap into the process underlying the effect of task type. We demonstrate that a rejection task produces decisions similar to those observed in a choice task when decision-makers are cognitively depleted (Study 4), or encouraged to rely on their feelings (Study 5). The findings provide insight into the effect of task type on deliberation and decision outcomes.

A focus on partisanship: How it impacts voting behaviors and political attitudes

“…Task type (rejection vs. choice) is another factor affecting systematic processing (Sokolova & Krishna, 2016) and, thus, the role of partisanship in judgment. When making decisions, people can reject the less attractive alternatives (e.g., selecting which candidate they would rather not have as a president) or choose the more attractive ones (e.g., selecting which candidate they would rather have as a president).…”

“…In turn, consideration of losses has been linked to greater visual attention (Hochman & Yechiam, 2011), and more rational decisions in risky choices (Yechiam & Hochman, 2013) and price evaluations (Chatterjee, Heath, Milberg, & France, 2000). With loss considerations being more prominent in rejection, rejection decisions lead to more systematic processing compared to choice decisions (as shown by Sokolova & Krishna, 2016). Applied to the context of partisan judgments, this implies that rejecting the less attractive candidate (vs. choosing the more attractive one) may lead people to become less reliant on partisan cues when voting.…”

Choosing what to choose from: Preference for inclusion over exclusion when constructing consideration sets from large choice sets

“…Research has documented various downstream consequences to the screening process (e.g., Chakravarti, Janiszewski, & Ülkümen, 2006;Nedungadi, 1990). Although past research has found that excluding may result in a consideration set more consistent with one's preferences (Kogut, 2011;Sokolova & Krishna, 2016) and greater weight placed on ethical attributes (Irwin & Naylor, 2009), these studies do not make direct claims about consideration set quality. Testing quality directly, studies have not found a difference in consideration set quality as a function of strategy (Levin et al, 2000).…”

“…Related research has used the terms "accept," "select," "choose," or "retain" versus "reject" or "eliminate." However, these terms are generally used to refer to a choice between two (or three) options in the choice phase and not to the consideration set construction phase of the decision process (e.g.,Chernev, 2009;Meloy & Russo, 2004;Shafir, 1993;Sokolova & Krishna, 2016;Wedell, 1997; but seeOrdóñez et al, 1999 for an exception).…”

Influence of Choice Architecture on the Preference for a Pro-Environmental Hotel

“…The impact of different decision tasks (i.e., choice vs. rejection) on people’s behavior has been investigated in various fields, including psychology (Meloy and Russo 2004), retailing (Nagpal, Lei, and Khare 2015), marketing (Laran and Wilcox 2011; C. W. Park, Jun, and Macinnis 2000; Sokolova and Krishna 2016), and tourism (J. Kim et al 2019).…”