Choice Overload
Introduction
Benjamin Scheibehenne and coauthors seek manuscripts for a meta-analysis on how the number of choice options affects choice motivation and satisfaction with the choice
: : : Posting
: : dialog
Dear colleagues,
We are conducting a meta-analysis on how the number of options to choose from affects the motivation to make a choice and satisfaction with that choice. To further understand the effect of assortment size on choice, we are looking for any unpublished (or in press) manuscripts or data (as well as any doctoral dissertations) from studies that manipulated the number of options to choose from. We are particularly interested in studies that then obtained behavioral measures that can be used to evaluate the influence of varying numbers of options on choice, as well as measures of the subjective perception of the choice assortment sizes.
If you have such data, we would greatly appreciate if you could make them available to us for analysis. Please contact the first of us at scheibehenne@mpib-berlin.mpg.de till mid November 2007.
The aim of our meta-analysis is to evaluate the so-called too much choice effect (also referred to as choice overload or hyperchoice). According to the effect, the motivation to make a choice and/or the satisfaction with the chosen option decreases when the number of options to choose from increases beyond some moderate level. However, the strenght of the effect has been found to vary substantially across studies. Hence, a meta-analysis is called for to determine the prevalence of, and conditions leading to, this type of effect. Thank you very much for your cooperation!
Sincerely,
Benjamin Scheibehenne (Max Planck Institute, Berlin),
Rainer Greifeneder (University of Mannheim), &
Peter M. Todd (Indiana University, Bloomington)