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Effect of Number of Options on Recall of Information Supporting Different Decision Strategies

University of Maryland, College Park

Richard Meltzer

University of Maryland, College Park

Margaret Clark

University of Maryland, College Park

The tendency to use an optinizing decision strategy (try to choose the best option) was hypothesized to be stronger when there is a small number of options and the tendency to use a satisficing strate gy (try to choose a good option) to be stronger when there is a large number of options. The tendency to think about aspects of the options on which the chosen option is the best was hypothesized to be stronger when an optimizing strategy was used and the tendency to think about aspects on which the chosen option is satisfactory to be stronger when a satisficing strategy was used. From these hypotheses it was predicted that recall of information about aspects on which the chosen option was the best but not good will be greater following a choice from a small number of options and recall of information about aspects on which the chosen option was good but not the best will be greater following a choice from a large number of options. An experiment confirmed these predictions.

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