Extending previous work on biased predecisional processing, we investigate the distortion of information during the evaluation of a single option. A coherence-based account of the evaluation task suggests that individuals will form an initial assessment of favorability toward the option and then...

We show how decision makers can be induced to choose a personally inferior alternative, a strong violation of rational decision making. The binary choice process is traced to reveal the progress of the manipulation. First, the inferior alternative is installed as the leading option by starting...

How do consumers resolve goal conflicts en route to making a choice? To answer this question, we examined choices in which two products were means to achieving different and conflicting goals. To glean insight into how consumers reconcile predecisional goal conflict, we tracked emerging...

When individuals obtain information about choice alternatives in a set one attribute at a time, they rapidly identify a leading alternative. Although previous research has established that individuals then distort incoming information, it is unclear whether distortion occurs through favoring of...

Consumers generally establish a preference for one product early in a decision process. When this preference does not include consideration of product prices, the currently preferred product is called the benefits leader. This article proposes that consumers who switch to a cheaper product after...

Problem Definition: We study the effectiveness of two theoretically and practically relevant interventions designed to stimulate the appeal of and willingness to pay (wtp) for re-manufactured (refurbished) consumer products that are often found repulsive by consumers: 1) educating consumers...

Shopper pickiness is an individual difference that is fundamentally associated with how individuals make choices. From lay intuition, we all know someone who is “picky”. Yet to date, research in marketing has neither systematically defined the construct nor provided the means by which to...

This paper examines consumers’ attention traces (e.g., sequences of eye fixations and saccades) during choice. Due to reduced equipment cost and increased ease of analysis, attention traces can reflect a more fine-grained representation of decision-making activities (e.g., formation of a...

Substitution decisions have been examined from a variety of perspectives. The economics literature measures cross-price elasticity, operations research models optimal assortments, the psychology literature studies goals in conflict, and marketing research has examined substitution-in-use, brand...

This research explores how the experience of a jilt — the anticipation and subsequent inaccessibility of a highly desirable, aspirant option — influences preference for incumbent and non-incumbent options. We conceptualize jilting as a multi-stage process, which consists of a pre-jilt...