Summary Cognitive Psychology and Cognition Experiments - EBC4198

Summary Cognitive Psychology 2016/2017 – EBC4198

Inhoud
Meeting 2: Introduction to Psychological processes in Decision Making ......................................................................... 1
Meeting 4: Heuristics and Biases ....................................................................................................................................... 5
Meeting 5: loss aversion (Prospect theory) ..................................................................................................................... 10
Meeting 7: Preferences and emotions in decision making ............................................................................................. 13
Meeting 8: Self Control and intertemporal choice .......................................................................................................... 17
Meeting 10: Moral decision making ................................................................................................................................ 22
Meeting 12: Intuitive decision making and the Somatic Marker hypothesis .................................................................. 28
Meeting 13: The neurological basis of decision making .................................................................................................. 34
Meeting 14 Escalation of Commitment & Naturalistic Decision Making ........................................................................ 39



Meeting 2: Introduction to Psychological processes in Decision Making

 Scheibehenne, Greifeneder, Todd (2010) – Can there ever be too many options? Meta-analysis Review of choice
overload.
Choice overload hypothesis – adverse consequences due to an increase in the number of options to choose from.
Is directly against classic choice theories, in which choice set cannot make a decision maker (dm) worse off.

Experiment Iyengar and Lepper (2000) – possible negative consequences due to having too much choice.
Tasting table with exotic jams at the entrance of a up sale grocery store. 2 conditions: containing either 6 or 24 jams.
Every consumer who approached the table got a coupon of 1 dollar off purchase of any jam of that brand.
 Results. They found that more consumer approached the table with 24 jams, but for actual purchase
30% who saw the 6 jams bought one. Only 3% bought something from the 24 jams.
 Conclusion. Paradox of choice, initial attractiveness of large assortment and its demotivating
consequences. Too many options leads to decrease of motivation of buy one.
Though replications of this study where not met.

Negative effects in an experiment depend on certain necessary preconditions (but not sufficient)
->Does not give a direct obvious reason why this should lead to choice overload.
 Lack of familiarity or prior preference
 No obvious dominant option in the choice set and proportion of non-dominated options are large

Arguments in favour of choice overload hypothesis
Why should too many options lead to less satisfaction?
1. If there are more option within a category, this makes the choice more difficult. As differences between
attractive options get smaller and amount available information increases. Decision complexity because of
small differences.
2. Large assortments are undesirable in a time-and-effort perspective. Induces fear for choosing the wrong.
3. In greater assortment, second-best alternatives become more likely. Which leads to more counterfactual
thinking and regret.
4. Large amount of options increases expectations, when similar options these expectations will not be met.
5. Preferences are loos-defined.
So, an individual does not know how to choose.

Arguments against the choice overload hypothesis
1. Large assortments increases the likelihood of satisfying diverse consumers.
2. Only large assortments give sales increases.
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