Decision Quicksand
How Trivial Choices Suck Us In
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2222729 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Aner Sela (0000-0002-2272-2077, University of Florida), Jonah Berger (0000-0002-2669-8211, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 360-370 |
| Publication date | 2012-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Consumer Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0093-5301 • E-ISSN: 1537-5277 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1086/662997 |
| OpenAlex | W2163264637 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 31 |
People often get unnecessarily mired in trivial decisions. Four studies support a metacognitive account for this painful phenomenon. Our central premise is that people use subjective experiences of difficulty while making a decision as a cue to how much further time and effort to spend. People generally associate important decisions with difficulty. Consequently, if a decision feels unexpectedly difficult, due to even incidental reasons, people may draw the reverse inference that it is also important and consequently increase the amount of time and effort they expend. Ironically, this process is particularly likely for decisions that initially seemed unimportant because people expect them to be easier (whereas important decisions are expected to be difficult to begin with). Our studies demonstrate that unexpected difficulty not only causes people to get caught up in unimportant decisions but also to voluntarily seek more options, which can increase decision difficulty even further
Cognitive psychology · Decision process · Economics · Epistemology · Inference · Management science · Phenomenon · Positive economics · Premise · Process (computing) · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology
Quality versus mere popularity
Choice Set Size Shapes Self-Expression
The moderation effect of multifunctionality between consumers’ shopping experience and embarrassment leading to non-adoption of innovations
Attribute Dismissal and Valence Effects in Preferential Decision Processing
When Being in a Positive Mood Increases Choice Deferral
The Product-Agnosia Effect
Are “10 Grams of Protein” Better than “Ten Grams of Protein”? How Digits versus Number Words Influence Consumer Judgments
How Self-Control Shapes the Meaning of Choice
Attending to the Big Picture
Overcoming intuition
Preference Fluency in Choice
Metacognitive Experiences in Consumer Judgment and Decision Making
Choice under Conflict
Construal-level theory of psychological distance.
When choice is demotivating
Effects of Perceptual Fluency on Judgments of Truth
Addressing Moderated Mediation Hypotheses
Primacy of wholistic processing and global/local paradigm
The Psychological Pleasure and Pain of Choosing
The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research
Flexible correction processes in social judgment
Assimilation and contrast as a function of people's willingness and ability to expend effort in forming an impression
Heuristic processing can bias systematic processing
Availability
Focusing on Desirability
When More Is Less and Less Is More
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,53 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2025 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |