Samuel M. Duncan Steven M. Wengrovitz Alexandra Sedlovskaya Andrea L. Patalano
Abstract
People have been shown to delay decision making to wait for missing noninstrumental attribute information --- information that would not have altered their decision if known at the outset --- with this delay originally attributed to uncertainty obscuring one's true preference (Bastardi \& Shafir, 1998). To test this account, relative to an alternative that delay arises from low confidence in one's preference (Tykocinski \& Ruffle, 2003), we manipulated information certainty and the magnitude of a penalty for delay, the latter intended to reduce the influence of easily resolved sources of delay and to magnify any influence of uncertainty. Contrary to expectations, the results were largely inconsistent with the uncertainty account in that, under a low penalty, delay did not depend on information certainty; and, under a high penalty, delay rate was actually much lower when information was uncertain. To explain the latter, we propose that people use a strategy for resolving choice under uncertainty that does not require establishing a confident preference for each value of the missing information. These findings are related to others in which choice difficulty has been found to be a major source of delay.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Volume (Year): 2 (2007) Issue (Month): (December) Pages: 351-358 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:jdm:journl:v:2:y:2007:i::p:351-358
Contact details of provider:
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Jonathan Baron).
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: