{"346501":{"#nid":"346501","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Decision Making in the Face of Choice Overload","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA quick drop-in to your local superstore to pick up a few essentials inexorably stretches into thirty minutes, then an hour, as you stand in front of unending walls of similar products. Likewise, health insurance and financial retirement plans present a seemingly limitless number of options. Research has suggested that increased choice sets may not be beneficial to decision makers. A new study shows that we are often not the best judge when it comes to choosing the method of our own decision making.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPrevious studies have demonstrated that\u2014from shopping to serious decisions such as healthcare plans\u2014a multitude of options can lead to choice overload. \u0026nbsp;The results are reduced decision quality, more indecision\u2014and greater regret. New research conducted by \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/faculty-and-staff\/faculty\/bio\/besedes\u0022\u003ETibor Besedes\u003C\/a\u003E in the \u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of Economics\u003C\/strong\u003E, along with Cary Deck, Sudipta Sarangi, and Mikhael Shor, examines decision-making through the proposition that it is possible to improve decisions people make without reducing available alternatives.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis possibility was examined through the use of different sequential choice architectures which were compared to subject preference of architecture. Interestingly, most people chose the least effective way of making choices, using a sequential elimination approach in which a previously selected option was compared to a new subset of options. Most tended to stick with their original choice, causing them to undervalue new options.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESimilarly, the architecture that was least-chosen improved the quality of decision making. This was a sequential tournament process: options are placed into subgroups and then \u201ccompete\u201d at each level until the final set in which the ultimate decision is made. Subjects who did the best when using the sequential tournament method were even more likely to prefer simultaneous choice.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EImplications\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo what does this mean? Primarily, we are probably not the most effective evaluators of the quality of our own decisions and thus err in selecting a method of choice. A potential way to mitigate indecision and regret after choosing an option without restricting a choice set is to focus on restructuring our choice architectures so that fewer options are considered concurrently.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis has major implications for those designing a choice problem in general and the domain of policy in particular. \u0026nbsp;While some decision-making interventions employ choice architectures that direct individuals toward certain choices while maintaining the opportunity to consider a larger set of options, Besedes et al. suggest that the appropriateness of this method needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Instead, policy makers may wish to impose an unpopular choice architecture procedure in order to improve decision making quality.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERead the full research paper, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/files\/wysiwyg\/file\/besedes%20-%20reducing%20choice%20overload.pdf\u0022\u003EReducing Choice Overload without Reducing Choices\u003C\/a\u003E, which has been accepted by The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ETibor Besedes is an associate professor in the School of Economics. His research in international trade focuses on the dynamics and stability of trading relationships between countries and factors determining duration of trade. His research in experimental and behavioral economics has focused on understanding how individuals make decisions in multi-attribute environments similar to decisions involving health insurance or drug coverage plans.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA quick drop-in to your local superstore to pick up a few essentials inexorably stretches into thirty minutes, then an hour, as you stand in front of unending walls of similar products. Likewise, health insurance and financial retirement plans present a seemingly limitless number of options. Research has suggested that increased choice sets may not be beneficial to decision makers. A new study shows that we are often not the best judge when it comes to choosing the method of our own decision making.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Research has suggested that increased choice may not be beneficial to decision makers, but how do we combat this?"}],"uid":"27889","created_gmt":"2014-11-17 15:23:55","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:30","author":"Beth Godfrey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-17T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-17T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"346491":{"id":"346491","type":"image","title":"Decision Making in Context","body":null,"created":"1449245670","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:30","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"Decision Making in Context","file":{"fid":"200940","name":"choice.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/choice_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/choice_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":49992,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/choice_0.jpg?itok=M_tSvPuG"}},"233951":{"id":"233951","type":"image","title":"Tibor Besedes","body":null,"created":"1449243641","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:40:41","changed":"1475894908","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:28","alt":"Tibor Besedes","file":{"fid":"197621","name":"tibor.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tibor_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tibor_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4177,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tibor_0.jpg?itok=i86rZgrY"}}},"media_ids":["346491","233951"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"41821","name":"choice architecture"},{"id":"82821","name":"decision making"},{"id":"602","name":"economics"},{"id":"10037","name":"mit press"},{"id":"167169","name":"statistics"},{"id":"41811","name":"tibor besedes"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETibor Besedes\u003Cbr \/\u003E(404) 385-0512 \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:tibor.besedes@econ.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Etibor.besedes@econ.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}