The effect of context for decision-making

Consumers’ decisions are found to be highly context dependent (for example, Klein and Yadav 1989; Simonson 1989; Tversky 1972). Decision context differs from the consumption situation, because decision context variables describe the

features of the decision task, whereas a situation describes psychological, physiological, and social surroundings of product usage.

In this study, decision task is defined as a description of the decision assignment as a job description given to somebody else. Decision task describes such variables as time pressure, complexity of choice, size of consideration set, importance of decision, etc. See below for examples of descriptions of two different decision tasks:

Subjective importance of the choice affects how much we seek for extra information (Posavac et al. 2003). If the choice is important for us, we give the matter more effort, search for more information, ask advice, and agonize over difficult trade-offs. According to Shi and Markman (2001), the importance of the task leads to different comparisons and affects thus the way the decision is made and moreover what is chosen. The more important the task is, the more difficult we may find it (Bettman 1973).

Sometimes there is no time limit for our choices; sometimes the choice must be made before a certain deadline. Time pressure affects how much information is gathered and processed, how many alternatives and attributes are considered, how the choice will be made, and what will be chosen (Bettman et al. 1998; Edland and Svenson 1993; Payne, Bettman and Luce 1996). Time pressure affects information search and processing. If we have time pressure, we search for less information (Ariely and Zakay 2001; Payne, Bettman and Johnson 1993; Payne, Bettman and Luce 1996) and accelerate the process, spending less time on each piece of information (Bettman et al. 1998; Payne, Bettman and Johnson 1988). This seems logical; when we do not have much time, it makes sense to consider less information and process it faster. When under time pressure, information is processed more selectively. People concentrate on important information (Bettman et al. 1998;

'

"

"

"

(

Payne, Bettman and Johnson 1988) and negative information rather than positive (Ariely and Zakay 2001; Bettman et al. 1998; Payne, Bettman and Johnson 1988,1993). It is natural that we want to consider more details only if we have more time. It is also natural to concentrate on negative information, since we want to avoid making bad choices we may regret. The researchers have noticed (for example, Bettman et al. 1998; Payne, Bettman and Johnson 1988) that time pressure affects the decision differently according to how severe the pressure is. When we are in a hurry, we want to simplify our decision-making process. Therefore, we use faster heuristics; we consider attributes rather than alternatives (Bettman et al. 1998; Payne, Bettman and Luce 1996). The more people experience time pressure, the more difficult they find decision-making. According to Ariely and Zakay (2001) and Payne et al. (1993), time pressure leads to noncompensatory heuristics. Time pressure can shift the decision maker’s goals from accuracy to efficiency (Payne, Bettman and Johnson 1988).

Consumer decisions can be easy to make (nearly automatic) or extremely difficult.

The decision task can sometimes be really complex. The complexity of decision task has a direct impact on choices. Bettman et al. (1998) argue that if the decision task is more complex, people ease their decision-making style accordingly and use simpler heuristics rules. If the task is too complex, it may prevent people from choosing at all. Sometimes, while evaluating alternatives and attributes, we can face a conflict between values. These conflicts are called trade-offs. For example, a typical trade-off difficulty arises when we try to decide which we value more: low price or safety of the product. Some of these trade-offs can be so frustrating that people try to avoid them by postponing the decision (Luce 1998; Tversky and Shafir 1992) or otherwise minimizing the negative emotions during decision-making (Luce 1998;

Luce et al. 1999). The choices are more difficult if there are many options in the consideration set. The size of the consideration set influences the choice of decision strategy (Bettman et al. 1998; Iyengar and Lepper 2000). If there are many alternatives, it is likely that we do want to process all of the alternatives and attributes but use some other heuristics to make decisions easier. If the consideration set is large, the decision-making costs for considering all the alternatives would be high.

Bettman et al. (1998) and Dhar et al. (2000) claim that an increase in the number of alternatives leads to a greater use of non-compensatory strategies.

It has been noticed that mood influences judgments and processing strategies. In section 2.4.3 it was described that people are rather skilled in managing their moods,

and that mood management may be an important motive for media usage. Mood can also be seen as a situation which affects choices. Mood has been noticed to influence mental processing, memory, attitudes, intentions, and decision-making (Hill and Gardner 1987; Luomala 1998). If we are in a bad mood, we do not want to or are not able to process very much information. According to Schwarz (2002), when people are in a bad mood, they use detail-oriented, bottom-up processing strategy and they trust data and details. According to Lewinsohn and Mano (1993), when in a good mood, people deliberated longer than when in a bad mood.

According to Schwarz (2002), in a good mood, people trust themselves. Emotions have been shown to affect cognitive processes (Isen and Patrick 1983) and play a rather important part in decision-making (Pfister and Böhm 1992). The negative emotions during the decision process arise especially when the decision task is difficult (Luce 1998) or when we have time pressure. Previous research reveals that that people have a strong tendency to repeat decisions made earlier, maintaining the status quo, rather than reevaluate and change their minds (Hartman et al. 1991;

Kahneman et al. 1991; Samuelson and Zeckhauser 1988). Postponing a decision is relatively easy; if we cannot postpone it, the decision costs increase.

To conclude the findings in this section, the elements of the decision task (time pressure, importance of the choice, mood, complexity of the choice and size of consideration set) affect how the decision is made. It has been shown that time pressure, importance of the choice, and mood affect how much information one gathers and how one processes it. Furthermore, complexity of the choice and time pressure have been shown to affect the choice of decision goals. These findings will be used when developing the comprehensive model consumer’s media choice process when choosing a decision goal and decision strategy.