Choice Overload and Making Decisions for Oneself and Others

Abstract: Standard economic theory typically assumes that more is better, or at least not worse. However, there is growing evidence that when making decisions, more options can have negative implications such as decreased satisfaction or confidence for decision-makers. This phenomenon known as choice overload or overchoice is especially relevant as today's digitalized and globalized world provides decision-makers with seemingly endless arrays of choices. In previous overchoice research, one aspect has been largely neglected, namely decisions that are made for someone else. This thesis, therefore, sets out to contribute to the existing literature by investigating the overchoice phenomenon when decision-makers decide for others. Moreover, nobody has previously investigated the underlying process of decision-making under choice overload, and in this thesis this "black-box" shall be opened. To investigate these aspects of decision-making, two quantitative studies, Study1 (n=166) and Study2 (n=89), were conducted. The evidence from these studies shows that more options can have negative impacts on choice satisfaction, perceived difficulty, confidence, as well as the willingness to revise a decision, and the enjoyment of making decisions. Generally, these negative impacts are mitigated when decisions are made for others. Hence, when decision-makers decide for another person, they are less subject to choice overload, although not all negative impacts of excessive options were offset. Study2 additionally showed that those deciding for others do not differ from those that decide for themselves, in terms of the quantity of information they request, and the type of information they use to derive decisions. This suggests no difference in the underlying process of decision-making under overchoice when decisions are made for someone else.