TO CHOOSE OR NOT TO CHOOSE - THIS IS THE QUESTION

The question of how people choose from a set of alternatives has been extensively examined at the expense of addressing another interesting and related issue: whether or not to choose from a given set of alternatives. The theme underlying normative theory of consumer choice emphasizes that consumers maximize outcome utility. The assumption is that people arrive at an overall value (utility) by combining a vector of attributes or outcome sequences for each option. For example, when selecting from multiattribute alternatives, the vector of product attributes is reduced to a scalar called utility that is maximized. Similarly, consumers selecting between extended sequences choose the plan that maximizes the discounted value of the component outcomes. The findings presented here argue against the adequacy of the classical utilitarian view that decisions are evaluated solely on the basis of their ends rather than their means. We test this general premise for two consumer decision making scenarios: preference for not choosing and choice between extended sequences. This session shows that the process of deciding influences choices in a manner such that normatively equivalent outcomes result in different preference orders. This paper summarizes the session by providing a brief overview, and by describing representative ideas from the four papers comprising the session.