Choice-process satisfaction: The influence of attribute alignability and option limitation

This research investigates how choice-process satisfaction is influenced by limitation of choice option and by the types of features used to represent the options. Studies of choice satisfaction have focused on how satisfied the decision maker feels about the choice that has been made and have overl ooked the importance of the process through which the decision maker makes a choice, i,e., choice-process satisfaction, We show that the comparability of choice options through alignable features increases choice-process sati sfaction, whereas option limitation (i,e,, making one option unavailable fr om a set of equally attractive options) decreases choice-process satisfacti on. Further, this decrease in satisfaction, relative to all options being a vailable, occurs for people who are given a set of options in which the dif ference features are alignable (i,e,, differences of a corresponding dimens ion) but not for people who are given a set of options in which the differe nce features are nonalignable (i,e,, differences of unique dimensions). We propose that alignable differences are easier to compare and have more weig ht in people's attribute processing, and thus give rise to a perception of a greater amount of information about the option set that is relevant for c hoice. Making an option unavailable in this case would have a bigger impact than in a situation in which all options have nonalignable differences. No nalignable differences are difficult to process and are less likely to make people aware that there is very much information about the options for dec ision making. This explanation and the interaction effect between option li mitation and feature alignability are tested in four experiments. (C) 1999 Academic Press.