Decision importance as a cue for deferral

Job Krijnen; Marcel Zeelenberg; Seger Breugelmans

Decision importance as a cue for deferral

Job Krijnen, Marcel Zeelenberg, Seger Breugelmans

Social Psychology

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Abstract

A series of 7 experiments found that people defer important decisions more than unimportant decisions, and that this is independent of choice set composition. This finding persists even when deferral does not provide more flexibility (Experiment 2), when deferral has potential disadvantages (Experiment 3), and when deferral has no material benefits and is financially costly (Experiment 4). The effect of importance on deferral was independent of potential choice conflict (Experiment 5 & 6). The only exception was a situation in which one alternative was clearly domina nt; here decision importance did not affect the likelihood of deferral (Experiment 7). These results suggest that people use decision importance as a cue for deferral: more important decisions should take more time and effort. Keywords: deferral, decision importance, heuristics, choice conflict

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	407-415
Journal	Judgment and Decision Making
Volume	10
Issue number	5
Publication status	Published - 2015

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title = "Decision importance as a cue for deferral",

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AB - A series of 7 experiments found that people defer important decisions more than unimportant decisions, and that this is independent of choice set composition. This finding persists even when deferral does not provide more flexibility (Experiment 2), when deferral has potential disadvantages (Experiment 3), and when deferral has no material benefits and is financially costly (Experiment 4). The effect of importance on deferral was independent of potential choice conflict (Experiment 5 & 6). The only exception was a situation in which one alternative was clearly domina nt; here decision importance did not affect the likelihood of deferral (Experiment 7). These results suggest that people use decision importance as a cue for deferral: more important decisions should take more time and effort. Keywords: deferral, decision importance, heuristics, choice conflict

UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10411/20661

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SN - 1930-2975

VL - 10

SP - 407

EP - 415

JO - Judgment and Decision Making

JF - Judgment and Decision Making

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Decision importance as a cue for deferral

Abstract

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