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Emerging direct-to-consumer brands offer a single option to consumers before expanding their assortment as the business grows. This provides a counterexample to commonly held beliefs concerning consumers’ aversion to single options. The purpose of this paper is to study when, for whom and why offering two product options (vs a single option) is valued by consumers.

Across six experiments, this research investigates consumers’ locomotion orientation (a motivation for controlling progress), which affects the valuation of choice (vs single options).

Consumers’ locomotion orientation determines perceived product value for products chosen from a two-option set (vs when considering a single option) because choice offers active control, which is engaging for high-locomotion consumers. Expanding the set to six options has no such effect.

Studies 1, 4a and 4b are set in the context of expert-selected single options, while Studies 2, 3 and 5 do not involve expert selection. However, the authors does not contrast expert vs non-expert conditions directly.

Managers can increase consumers’ willingness to pay by using advertisements to induce locomotion or segmenting consumers based on locomotion orientations.

Research suggests that consumers value choice between options, yet many emerging brands succeed with a single option. The authors reconcile this by providing insights into motivations that determine when, for whom and why choice (vs a single option) is valued.

The purpose of this study is to investigate online viewers’ preferences concerning the number and duration of video advertisements to watch during commercial breaks. The goal of the investigations was to assess whether online viewers preferred watching a fewer number of advertisements with longer durations or a greater number of advertisements with shorter durations.

Two studies used experimental research designs to assess viewers’ preferences regarding advertisements. These designs used two independent variables and one dependent variable. The first independent variable manipulated the type of choice options given to online viewers (e.g. one 60 s or two 30 s advertisements). The second independent variable manipulated when the choice was given to online viewers (i.e. at the beginning of the viewing experience or in the middle of the experience). The dependent variable measured viewers’ choices concerning their preferred advertisement option.

The results across both studies found that participants made choices that minimized total advertisement exposure time when possible. When minimizing total exposure time was not possible, participants made choices that minimized the number of exposures instead.

These investigations extend the literature on advertisement choice by examining online viewers’ preferences about the format of their advertising experience rather than the content of the persuasive messages themselves. In addition, these investigations provide value by investigating viewers’ responses to stimuli within realistic online simulations rather than abstract hypotheticals.

Research on choice overload with adult participants has shown that the presence of a brand significantly mitigates the phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether these findings can be expanded to a population of adolescents, where it has already been shown that choice overload occurs in a similar way as adults.

Studies 1 and 2 aim to test whether the presence of a brand name mitigates the adverse consequences of choice overload in adolescents. In line with prior research on choice overload, in both studies, the authors compared between-subjects differences in the levels of reported dissatisfaction, difficulty and regret in a choice condition where adolescents chose among either 6 or 24 options associated with brand names and in another choice condition where adolescents chose among the same 6 or 24 options but not associated with brand names.

This paper presents evidence from two studies that when facing either a large or a small amount of choice options that are associated with brand names, choice overload disappears among adolescents. Conversely, when no brands are associated to the choice options, adolescents report choice overload, that is a greater dissatisfaction, difficulties and regret with larger (versus smaller) assortments.

Prior research on choice overload has led to recommendations that marketers and other choice architects should simply reduce choice options or assortments to improve consumers’ satisfaction. However, our finding suggests that this recommendation may be invalidated when brands are present, at least for certain age groups. Adolescents cope indeed very well with large assortments of branded products.

The research adds to the existing understanding of choice overload, demonstrating that the brand is a moderator of the phenomenon for adolescents, who currently represent a large portion of the market. A second important contribution of this work is that it extends prior research on choice overload to real-world consumer scenarios, where consumers choose among products with a brand, rather than among products described only by technical characteristics or nutritional values, as in classical studies on choice overload.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of option choice reversibility on the number of options chosen, total spending, and upset/regret from actions/inaction, using 124 Singaporean adults.

The experiment employs two levels of option choice reversibility: fully reversible without a penalty vs strictly irreversible. Participants add options to a base model or delete options from a full model and are either allowed or not allowed to change options in a condominium purchase scenario.

Compared to participants in the irreversible choice condition, those in the reversible choice select more options and end up with higher total spending. In the irreversible option choice condition, participants anticipate more upset (one aspect of regret) when they take actions than inaction, but in the reversible option choice condition, the reverse is true.

The study uses only one decision stimulus, which is a condominium purchase, and the purchase scenario might not be as realistic as an actual purchase decision.

Refunds and option change permission policies make consumers feel they can reverse their buying decisions, making them feel the decisions are less risky and thus inducing them to buy more than when no refunds or option change is allowed after purchase. To drive consumers to take actions, marketers should allow consumers to change their mind after making decisions and assure them of such policy.

The paper shows the effect of decision reversibility on the total spending (i.e. the total costs of choices made) and extends the theory about omission biases by demonstrating that regrets from actions/inaction depend on decision reversibility.

This study aims to investigate the psychological process of intertemporal choices between larger-later and smaller-sooner monetary options. Prior research showed consumer impatience – a tendency to prefer a smaller-sooner option over a larger-later option. This research identifies an individual difference that predicts patience and mediators that explain the underlying mechanism.

Two studies are conducted. Study 1 examines whether the implicit theory of intelligence consumers endorse (i.e. entity theory vs incremental theory) constitutes an antecedent of patience and whether their thoughts regarding anticipated purchase with the chosen monetary option (i.e. hedonic versus utilitarian purchase) mediate the relationship. Study 2 analyzes whether psychological reactance toward larger-later options is a mediator in this relationship using a perceived threat to freedom and affect as reactance indicators.

Entity-oriented consumers exhibited less patience than incremental-oriented consumers, especially when anticipating a hedonic purchase. Moreover, entity-oriented consumers perceived a threat to freedom from larger-later options more strongly – this enhanced perception influenced patience through two routes. One route is that the perceived threat to freedom leads to more consideration of a hedonic purchase rather than a utilitarian purchase, thereby decreasing patience. The other route is that the perceived threat to freedom elicits a stronger negative affect, resulting in lower patience.

Findings of this research shed light on the understanding of patience. They demonstrate that consumers’ implicit theory orientation is a crucial individual difference that can explain patience. Also, demonstrating the mediating roles of anticipated purchase using the hedonic/utilitarian classification and psychological reactance expanded literature by showing how they internally interact.

Studies in psychology have long revealed that making personal choice involves multiple motivational consequences. It has only been recent, however, that the literature on neuroscience started to examine the neural underpinnings of personal choice and motivation. This chapter reviews this sparse, but emergent, body of neuroscientific literature to address possible neural correlates underlying personal choice. By conducting the review, we encourage future systematic research programs that address this topic under the new realm of “autonomy neuroscience.” The chapter especially focused on the following motivational aspects: (i) personal choice is rewarding, (ii) personal choice shapes preference, (iii) personal choice changes the perception of outcomes, and (iv) personal choice facilitates motivation and performance. The reviewed work highlighted different aspects of personal choice, but indicated some overlapping brain areas – the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) – which may play a critical role in motivational processes elicited by personal choice.

We review the experimental evidence on risk aversion in controlled laboratory settings. We review the strengths and weaknesses of alternative elicitation procedures, the strengths and weaknesses of alternative estimation procedures, and finally the effect of controlling for risk attitudes on inferences in experiments.

The purpose of this research is to test how varying the numbers of attributes and alternatives affects the use of heuristics and selective information processing in discrete choice experiments (DCEs). The effects of visual attribute and alternative non-attendance (NA) on respondent choices are analyzed.

Two laboratory experiments that combined eye tracking and DCEs were conducted with 109 and 117 participants in the USA. The DCEs varied in task complexity by the number of product attributes and alternatives.

Results suggest that participants ignore both single attributes and entire alternatives. Increasing the number of alternatives significantly increased attribute NA. Including NA in choice modeling influenced results more in more complex DCEs.

The current experiments did not test for choice overload. Future studies could investigate more complex designs. The choice environment affects decision-making. Future research could compare laboratory and field experiments.

Private and public sectors often use DCEs to determine consumer preference. Results suggest that DCEs with two alternatives are superior to DCEs with four alternatives because NA was lower in the two-alternative design.

This empirical research examined effects of attribute and alternative NA on choice modeling using eye tracking and DCEs with varying degrees of task complexity. Results suggest that accounting for NA reduces the risk of over- or understating the impact of attributes on choice, in that one avoids claiming significance for attributes that might not truly be preferred, and vice versa.

Purpose — New methods of measuring user satisfaction in transport services have been proposed and applied in the literature. In this paper, we compare three alternative measures for estimating user satisfaction: the numerical rating, the ordinal rating and the choice.

Approach — We analysed these measures considering their differences and limitations and the models that use these measures as dependent variables. We developed and applied a methodology to build these models. It comprises a preliminary qualitative analysis and a quantitative survey to identify the most relevant attributes of the satisfaction function, and a stated preference survey to obtain information of the alternative satisfaction measures for modelling purpose.

Findings — The ordinal rating may be a better user response to estimate satisfaction than score and choice based on its characteristics. The results obtained in the application reinforced this approach.

Research limitations — It is assumed that choice, score and ordinal valuation depend upon a latent stochastic satisfaction function of the same attributes. Further research is needed to analyse this assumption and how these responses vary according to the context for decision and exogenous factors, including the response scale of ratings.

Practical implications — Gathering alternative satisfaction responses simultaneously from users allowed for the consistency analysis and filtering of data, which greatly benefited the model estimation process.

Originality/value — The paper provides a methodology to estimate user satisfaction models in transit services, which can be applied in other transport services. The conceptual analysis and the application suggest that ordinal ratings are key user responses to uncover the underlying satisfaction function.