choice-process satisfaction: the influence of attribute ...gavan/bio/gjf...the degree of...

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesVol. 77, No. 3, March, pp. 192–214, 1999Article ID obhd.1999.2821, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Choice-Process Satisfaction: The Influence ofAttribute Alignability and Option Limitation

Shi Zhang

University of California, Los Angeles

and

Gavan J. Fitzsimons

University of Pennsylvania

This research investigates how choice-process satisfaction isinfluenced by limitation of choice option and by the types offeatures used to represent the options. Studies of choice satisfac-tion have focused on how satisfied the decision maker feels aboutthe choice that has been made and have overlooked the impor-tance of the process through which the decision maker makes achoice, i.e., choice-process satisfaction. We show that the compa-rability of choice options through alignable features increaseschoice-process satisfaction, whereas option limitation (i.e., mak-ing one option unavailable from a set of equally attractiveoptions) decreases choice-process satisfaction. Further, thisdecrease in satisfaction, relative to all options being available,occurs for people who are given a set of options in which thedifference features are alignable (i.e., differences of a correspond-ing dimension) but not for people who are given a set of optionsin which the difference features are nonalignable (i.e., differencesof unique dimensions). We propose that alignable differences areeasier to compare and have more weight in people’s attributeprocessing, and thus give rise to a perception of a greater amountof information about the option set that is relevant for choice.

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Marketing Studies Center at UCLA;comments on an earlier version from Aimee Drolet, Ellie Fang, Art Markman, Atanu Sinha, thehelpful editor, and reviewers; and technical assistance from Carolyn Cohen, Jeff Robinson, LauraBrown, and Noe

¨lle Triaureau. They also thank Bill Yost for recruiting participants from his class.

The order of authorship is random.Address correspondence and reprint requests to Shi Zhang, 110 Westwood Plaza B412,

UCLA–Anderson School, Los Angeles, CA 90095. Fax: (310) 206-7422. E-mail: [email protected].

1920749-5978/99 $30.00Copyright q 1999 by Academic PressAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

ALIGNABILITY AND OPTION LIMITATION 193

Making an option unavailable in this case would have a biggerimpact than in a situation in which all options have nonalignabledifferences. Nonalignable differences are difficult to process andare less likely to make people aware that there is very muchinformation about the options for decision making. This explana-tion and the interaction effect between option limitation andfeature alignability are tested in four experiments. q 1999 Aca-

demic Press

INTRODUCTION

The issue of decision satisfaction is an important topic that has receivedscant attention in psychology and decision research. The few works that existon this topic have focused either on the analysis of satisfaction in terms ofpostchoice dissonance reduction (Festinger, 1957) or more recently on the post-choice evaluations of a decision that produces conflicting feelings of satisfactionor regret (Houston, Sherman, & Baker, 1991). Decision satisfaction, in theseworks, refers to the level of feelings of satisfaction or regret regarding thechosen alternative or rejected alternative. Satisfaction, therefore, is associatedonly with the decision about the outcome choice. The current research expandsthe study of decision satisfaction by focusing on the decision process itselfrather than the choice outcome. The research attempts to isolate factors thatmay influence decision-process satisfaction and proposes a mechanism thataccounts for the main and interactive effects of these factors.

The process through which a decision or choice is made constitutes an im-portant aspect of decision satisfaction. People’s affective experience of the deci-sion process can be influenced by variables that shape the situation in whichthe decision occurs. For example, people can find themselves in a situation inwhich one of the choice options they are comparing is not available (e.g., thedisplay shoe is out of stock in a shoe store). If a choice is required, theymust therefore make a selection from the remaining options. Compared witha situation in which all the choice options are available, the former situationshould make people feel that the “option to choose” is restricted, even whenthe unavailable option would not be their ultimate choice. Thus, they maybe less satisfied with the experience of making a choice (e.g., Brehm, 1966).Researchers in legal and organizational justice domains have devoted consider-able energy to the subject of procedural justice—perceived fairness of thejustice process itself, independent of the outcome of the deliberation (Sheppard,Lewicki, & Minton, 1992; Thibault & Walker, 1975). We draw an analogy tothe choice domain and examine decision makers’ satisfaction with the decisionprocess rather than the choice outcome, henceforth choice-process satisfaction.

The degree of satisfaction with the choice process is an important topicfor investigation for both theoretical and practical purposes. Choice-processsatisfaction may affect willingness to shop at a store at which the choice wasmade. For example, unsatisfactory experience with the choice process, suchas unavailability of certain choice options, can generate significant customer

194 ZHANG AND FITZSIMONS

complaints (e.g., Andersen Consulting, 1996; Hess & Gersner, 1987). Further-more, customers are found to be generally more satisfied, which implies ahigher likelihood of repurchase, when they are given quality and reliabilityinformation about the choice options during their decision processes (West-brook, Newman, & Taylor, 1978). More importantly, understanding what factorscontribute to choice-process satisfaction may further illuminate the relationbetween comparison processes and postdecisional affective response in general.For example, Houston et al. (1991) provide evidence supporting a negativerelationship between prechoice conflict due to the features of the alternativesand postchoice satisfaction. They demonstrate that alternatives with uniquebad features generate conflicts and vacillation between alternatives. Once achoice is made, choice satisfaction is greater when the comparison and pro-cessing focus is on the rejected alternative (vs the accepted alternative). Thisoccurs because if the rejected alternative is focused on, its unique bad featureswill become especially apparent, and the unique bad features of the acceptedalternative will be neglected (see Tversky, 1977). In contrast, if the processingfocus is on the accepted alternative (vs the rejected alternative), choice satisfac-tion is lower because its unique bad features will be especially apparent, andthe unique bad features of the rejected alternative will be neglected.

The results of Houston et al. (1991) suggest that the way choice options arerepresented (e.g., via features) and the comparison process is conducted (e.g.,which option is the focus of attention or how options are processed) may alsoplay an important role in choice-process satisfaction. In this research we treatchoice-process satisfaction as a dependent measure and examine how optionlimitation and option information—particularly the alignability and ease ofcomparison of the information—affect satisfaction with the choice process. Weshow that option limitation (i.e., making one option unavailable from a set ofequally attractive options) decreases choice-process satisfaction, whereas thecomparability of choice options through alignable features increases satisfac-tion. These two factors also interact to influence the choice-process satisfaction.Decreases in satisfaction due to option limitation, relative to all options beingavailable, occur for people who are given a set of options in which the differencefeatures are alignable (i.e., differences of a corresponding dimension; see Mark-man & Gentner, 1993) but not for people who are given a set of options inwhich the difference features are nonalignable (i.e., differences of unique di-mensions). We propose that alignable differences are easier to compare andcarry more weight in people’s attribute processing, and thus give rise to aperception of a greater amount of information about the option set that isrelevant for choice. Making an option unavailable in this case would havea bigger impact than in a situation in which all options have nonalignabledifferences. Nonalignable differences are difficult to process and are likely tomake people less aware that there is much information about the options thatis relevant for decision making. When people are less aware that there is muchrelevant information, they will be less capable of knowing the value of theavailable options as well as that of the limited option. As a result, people arelikely to be less satisfied overall, and whether or not a limitation occurs will


not make much of a difference. In the following sections, we briefly review therelevant research on option limitation and comparison-based decision making.We then present four experiments to demonstrate the main effects of featurealignability and option limitation, their interaction on choice-process satisfac-tion (Experiments 1 and 3), and the underlying determinants of these effects,such as ease of comparison and perceived amount of option information (Experi-ments 2 and 3). Finally (in Experiment 4), we show that processes conduciveto feature processing and an awareness of the amount of information aboutthe options (i.e., increasing people’s processing ability through considerationset formation) will enhance choice-process satisfaction even when features ofthe options are not easy to compare.

Option Limitation

The phenomenon of option limitation has been only indirectly dealt within the choice literature. Farquhar and Pratkanis (1987) and Pratkanis andFarquhar (1992), for example, investigate the impact of “phantom” alternatives,i.e., unavailable options, on choice probabilities. While traditional models ofindividual choice assume that the addition of an unavailable alternative to achoice set will have no impact on the ratios of choice probabilities among theoriginal alternatives (Luce, 1959), Farquhar and Pratkanis demonstrate casesin which the assumption is violated. They show that an unavailable alternativehas potential contrast and attribute importance effects and thus influencesthe choice probabilities of the original alternatives. While this research sug-gests that the unavailability of an option can affect preference for options inthe set, our interest is in how unavailability of an option may affect the decisionmaker’s experience of making a choice.

In his theory of psychological reactance, Brehm (1966) suggests that decisionmakers’ reaction to a limitation of a choice option will vary in proportion tothe importance of the option. For example, reaction to the limitation of a choiceoption is greater as preference for the alternative, as well as the importance ofthe alternative, increases (e.g., an automobile vs a toaster). Though important,Brehm’s suggestion does not directly deal with decision makers’ reaction towardthe experience of having a choice option limited while holding desirability ofthe choice options constant. In order to assess choice-process satisfaction, wecreate a set of equally attractive choice options and test the presence andabsence of option limitation on decision makers’ satisfaction with the choiceexperience. Under these conditions, we expect that people’s choice-process satis-faction will be greater when all the options are available versus when an optionis limited.

Underlying the above-mentioned studies of unavailable options is the im-portant assumption that people process attribute information for each option,which enables them to assess the options and to be influenced by the unavail-ability of a choice option. Next we discuss how representation of sets of choiceoptions may influence the processing of options and choice-process satisfaction.


Comparison and Feature Alignability

Comparison processes play a fundamental role in judgment and choice.Research on attribute-based evaluation (Sanbonmatsu, Kardes, & Gibson,1991) and on similarity and comparison (Markman & Medin, 1995) suggeststhat processing of options favor comparable features over noncomparable fea-tures, also known as alignable differences and nonalignable differences (seeGentner, 1983, 1989; Markman & Gentner 1993, for comparison process as analignment of hierarchical relational structures).

A comparison of two items, X and Y, is not just a straightforward matter ofcomparing all of the attributes or features of X with all of those of Y (Tversky,1977). Studies have shown that features that are unique to the comparing item(e.g., X) tend to be highlighted over the unique features of the item beingcompared to (e.g., Y): the so-called direction-of-comparison effect (e.g., Houston,Sherman, & Baker, 1989, 1991; Tversky, 1977; Tversky & Gati, 1982). Ofparticular importance was the finding that directional effects in preferencejudgments depend on the nature of the features involved in the comparisonprocess (Sanbonmatsu, Kardes, & Gibson, 1991). This effect was observedwhen the features of two options were from different dimensions—unique ornonalignable (e.g., “low level of sodium” vs “large-sized corn”)—but not whenthe features occupied different points on the same dimension—features thatare alignable (e.g., “large-sized corn” vs “medium-sized corn”). This suggeststhat feature-based comparisons may be characterized by a search of the itemsunder comparison for alignable features rather than for nonalignable features.In other words, the kinds of features of which options are composed may affectfeature-based processing and the perceived information of the options.

Significant evidence exists for the distinction between alignable and non-alignable differences in comparisons and their differential effects in cognitivetasks. In particular, alignable differences are given more weight in similaritycomparisons than are nonalignable differences, they are listed more often thanare nonalignable differences, and they are more likely to appear as justificationsfor decisions than are nonalignable differences (Gentner & Markman, 1994;Markman & Gentner, 1996; Markman & Medin, 1995). More importantly,choice options represented by alignable differences vs nonalignable differencescan lead to significantly different patterns of preference judgments for theoptions. In Zhang and Markman (1998), alignable differences of the choiceoptions are recalled better than nonalignable differences, and alignable differ-ences rather than nonalignble differences serve as input for preferenceconstruction.

With respect to choice-process satisfaction, we suggest that alignable differ-ences, relative to nonalignable differences, facilitate the comparison processand choice-process experience. By focusing on alignable differences, the align-ment process ensures that all choice options have a comparable representation.Further, alignable differences are easier to process and evaluate than non-alignable differences. These properties are likely to increase people’s satisfac-


tion experience when they choose from a set of options with alignable differencesrather than nonalignable differences.

Moreover, the comparability or ease of comparison of alignable differencesmay allow them to receive more attention and elaboration. During comparisonof choice options, participants are found to attend more to features that arealignable rather than nonalignable (e.g., Slovic & MacPhillamy, 1974). Thus,alignable differences are likely to be processed more completely than non-alignable differences. The comparability of alignable features may also enhancethe perceived amount of information of options and the relevance of alignablefeatures for decision making, because differences on a common dimension serveas better judgment cues than do nonalignable features. Because of these rea-sons, people are likely to feel less satisfied with the choice process when theyexperience a psychological loss of perceived relevant information through achoice option limitation relative to a situation in which all options are available.In contrast, nonalignable features are harder to process and may suggestomission of information (Sanbonmatsu, Kardes, & Herr, 1992; Sanbomatsu,Kardes, Posavac, & Houghton, 1997). The presence of features in one item andthe absence of the same features in the other item may be perceived as offeringa smaller amount of the total possible information of the options. Thus, non-alignable differences are likely to be processed less completely and to be per-ceived as less relevant for decision making in comparison to alignable differ-ences. When people are not aware that there is much relevant information,they may not feel capable of judging the options. In this situation, choice optionsrepresented by nonalignable differences will make people feel less satisfiedwith the decision-making process regardless of choice limitation situation.

In sum, we predict that choice-process satisfaction will be greater whenoptions are represented by alignable features than when they are representedby nonalignable features, and when all options are available than when anoption is limited. Moreover, we predict that choice-process satisfaction willdepend upon an interaction between the types of difference features used torepresent the options in the choice set and the presence of an option limitation.For alignable-difference options, satisfaction should be less when one of theoptions is limited rather than when all options are available. For nonalignable-difference options, satisfaction should not differ significantly when one of theoptions is limited or when all the options are available. Next, we present fourexperiments to test these hypotheses.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method

Subjects. One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from theUCLA community participated in the study in exchange for a payment of$5. Participants reported to an auditorium and were assigned randomly toconditions by receiving different booklets.


Stimuli. Attribute descriptions are shown in Table 1. Two sets of threebrands were constructed. All brands had nine attributes. Four of these attri-butes were commonalities, while the remaining five attributes were differences.One set of three brands had alignable differences (we refer to this as thealignable condition), while the other set of three brands had nonalignabledifferences (we refer to this as the nonalignable condition). One brand, BrandC in Table 1, was identical across the two alignability conditions. Attributeschosen for each type of feature difference (i.e., commonalities, alignable differ-ences, and nonalignable differences) were randomly drawn from a list ofattributes.

Before the main study, an independent pool of 46 subjects took part in apretest to provide attribute ratings. The attributes were rated on a semanticdifferential scale with endpoints 1 for “extremely bad” and 9 for “extremelygood.” Attributes of the brands were designed such that the three brands ineach condition were approximately equal in terms of desirability. Ratings ineach condition were as follows: A 5 6.02, B 5 6.05, C 5 6.12, F , 1 in thealignable condition, and A 5 5.93, B 5 5.89, C 5 6.12, F , 2 in the non-alignable condition.

Design. The design is a 2 (Difference Type: alignable difference, non-alignable difference) 3 2 (Availability: all options available, one option notavailable) between-subjects design. Half of the participants saw the brands inthe alignable set; the other half saw the brands in the nonalignable set. Thethree brands were presented on the same sheet of paper, with order of brandsfrom left to right counterbalanced between subjects.

TABLE 1

Individual Attributes for Brands in Experiment 1

Brand A Brand B Brand C

Alignable Uses Southwest corn Uses Midwest corn Uses Northwest corndifferences Medium-size kernels Good-size kernels Large kernels

Comes with microwave Comes with disposable Pops in its own bagbowl microwave bags

Calories equal to a Calories equal to 20 Calories equal to a slicetablespoon of sugar peanuts of bread

Crunchiness lasts long Crunchiness lasts for Crunchiness lasts withinthree hours a specified time

Nonalignable Kind of crispy Few kernels left Uses Northwest corndifferences Not likely to burn unpopped Large kernels

Tastes a bit sweet Some oil Pops in its own bagEasy to swallow Comes in one package Calories equal to a sliceLow in corn, grain size of bread

flavor Not tough Crunchiness lasts withinHas fiber a specified time

Note. Commonalities are constant for all brands: fairly low level of sodium, easy to prepare,easy to store, and fairly low cost per servings. One fixed order of randomly mixed attributes wasused for all brands.


Procedure. Each participant received a booklet and was told to follow theinstructions closely. Instructions on the front page explained that this was agrocery study about choosing brands of microwave popcorn. Participants weretold to imagine that they were interested in purchasing microwave popcornand that they were standing in a supermarket aisle and examining brands ofpopcorn. On the following page, they received attribute descriptions about threebrands—Brand A, Brand B, and Brand C, either the alignable set or thenonalignable set. For half of the participants, one of the three brands (BrandC) had a “tag” pasted over it which read “Sold Out.” For the other half of theparticipants, all three brands were available. Participants were asked, of thebrands available to them, which would they choose. On the following page,participants completed a series of questions designed to measure their satisfac-tion with the decision process (Fitzsimons, Greenleaf, & Lehmann, 1997). Theseitems were as follows (all items have endpoints 1 5 strongly agree, 10 5

strongly disagree, unless otherwise noted): (1) I found the process of decidingwhich product to buy frustrating; (2) Several good options were available forme to choose between; (3) How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with yourexperience of deciding which product option to choose? (endpoints 1 5 extremelysatisfied, 10 5 extremely dissatisfied); (4) I thought the choice selection wasgood; (5) I would be happy to choose from the same set of product options onmy next purchase occasion; and (6) I found the process of deciding which productto buy interesting. Finally, participants were debriefed.

Results

A choice-process satisfaction index was constructed by averaging the sixitems (Cronbach’s a 5 0.82). In addition to the reported six-item compositemeasure, we also computed a three-item general satisfaction measure (Items1, 3, and 6) and found no substantial differences between the full six-item andthe three-item composite measures. Thus we report only the six-item measure.The index range was from 1 to 10, with higher numbers indicating greaterlevels of satisfaction. The mean levels of satisfaction ranged across conditionsfrom a high of 6.4 to a low of 5.2 and are shown in Fig. 1. The choice sharedata were almost equally distributed among the brands in each condition,conforming to our stimuli set-up that each brand should be equally attractive(nonalignable/C unavailable: A 5 49%, B 5 51%; nonalignable/available: A 5

33.3%, B 5 31.1%, C 5 35.6%; alignable/C unavailable: A 5 53.3%, B 5 46.7%;alignable/available A 5 34.8%, B 5 28.3%, C 5 37%). The fact that brand Cwas not chosen more often than the other brands in the available conditionssuggests that the differential effect of satisfaction between alignability condi-tions in Fig. 1 is not contingent upon the choice of brand C.

A 2 3 2 between-subjects ANOVA was performed on the choice-process satis-faction scores with factors (i) Difference Type and (ii) Availability. The omnibusmodel was significant, F(3, 183) 5 6.48, p , .01, as were the main effects ofavailability F(1, 183) 5 5.73, p , .05, and difference type, F(1, 183) 5 9.32,p , .01. The main effect of availability showed significantly lower levels of


FIG. 1. Choice-process satisfaction as a function of attribute alignability and option limitation.

satisfaction for participants who had their choice sets restricted by receivingan unavailable option. The main effect of difference type demonstrated signifi-cantly higher levels of satisfaction for participants who chose from sets thathad alignable differences (venus nonalignable attributes). The analysis alsorevealed a two-way interaction between availability and difference type, F(1,183) 5 4.19, p , .05. As predicted, a planned contrast between conditionsshowed that there was a significant decrease in choice-process satisfaction dueto the presence of an unavailable option for the alignable condition but notfor the nonalignable condition. In the alignable condition, mean satisfactiondecreased from 6.40 to 5.47 due to limitation, F(1, 183) 5 9.85, p , .01. In thenonalignable condition, satisfaction ratings were approximately equal betweenthose who received an unavailable option and those who did not,M 5 5.21 versus M 5 5.29, F(1, 183) , 1. Finally, satisfaction was significantlyhigher in the alignable condition than in the nonalignable condition when alloptions were available (M 5 6.40 vs M 5 5.29), F(1, 183) 5 12.80, p , .01.

Discussion

The findings conform to our expectations. First, people like the availabilityof options in the choice set. This is intuitive and easy to understand. Second,participants who are given alignable difference options show more satisfactionthan those who are given the nonalignable difference options. Alignable differ-ences, as suggested earlier, often serve as heuristic dimensions for decisionmaking and are easier to process, relative to nonalignable differences. As aresult, processing alignable-difference options is a relatively more pleasantexperience. The interesting result is that participants’ satisfaction with thechoice process was significantly lower when an option was limited than when


all options were available for the choice set of alignable-difference options;however, this contrast is absent for the nonalignable-difference options (i.e.,satisfaction is low regardless of option limitation).

We have suggested that alignable difference options would allow participantsto engage in easier comparison and more complete processing of option informa-tion and to have a perception of more attribute information available andrelevant for choice than do nonalignable difference options. It was our assump-tion that when people (in the alignable condition) feel an ease of comparisonthey will have a pleasant experience during the choice process. In addition,when people (in the alignable condition) are more aware that they are pro-cessing information perceived to be relevant for decision making and are capa-ble of judging options, losing one of the options will make them feel less satisfiedabout the decision process than people (in the nonalignable condition) who areless aware that there is much information relevant for choice to begin with.However, whether people indeed feel the ease of comparison and perceivemore attribute information about the options needs to be empirically verified.Experiment 2 was conducted to examine whether, in a decision-making context,participants had the subjective experience that the comparison process waseasier and that they were attending to more information of options for choicewhen they were processing alignable differences than when they were pro-cessing nonalignable differences. Experiment 3 varies the ease of comparisonto increase the ability to process attribute information. It replicates Experiment1 and demonstrates that enhanced ease of comparison leads people to feel moresatisfied about their choice process relative to a baseline ease of comparisonas well as relative to a reduced ease of comparison.

EXPERIMENT 2

Method

Thirty-six students from a class at UCLA were shown the same sets of optionsas in Experiment 1, the alignable difference option set or the nonalignabledifference option set (without being given the option limitation information).The participants were told to consider making a choice from one of the optionsets and then to provide responses to the dependent measures for ease ofcomparison and perceived amount of information of options. Ease of comparisonwas measured on a 9-point scale: In general, you find that comparing thesebrands and their attribute description seems (not at all easy–very easy). Per-ceived amount of information was measured on two 9-point scales: In general,you find that the amount of information provided about each brand for decisionmaking seems (a little–a lot); in general, you find that the information providedabout each brand seems (not at all complete–very complete).

Results and Discussion

The results are shown in Fig. 2. A t test performed on the ratings of ease ofcomparison revealed a significant difference between the groups, t(34) 5 3.49,


FIG. 2. Ease of comparison (top) and perceived amount of information (bottom) as a functionof attribute alignablility.

p , .01. Participants presented with alignable-difference options perceived itto be easier to compare the attribute descriptions than did participants whowere presented with nonalignable-difference options (M 5 5.93 vs M 5 3.75).Moreover, a t test also revealed a significant effect of alignability on the per-ceived amount of information about the options (an index averaging the twoitems about information is used, corr 5 0.62, p , .001). Participants in thealignable difference condition perceived significantly more information rele-vant for choice than did those in the nonalignable difference condition (M 5

6.68 vs M 5 4.90), t(34) 5 3.46, p , .01. Our contention is that alignabledifference options are easier to compare and are perceived to offer more optioninformation than nonalignable difference options (corr (ease of comparison,amount of information) 5 0.41, p , .05). The results of this experiment supportthis contention.


In our stimuli construction (which uses nine attributes for each option), easeof comparison can be thought of as a combination of feature alignablity andcommonalties for choice options. For example, with the total number of attri-butes as well as the number of commonalities kept constant, the use of alignable(vs nonalignable) differences should result in greater ease of comparison. Inaddition, when the number of alignable differences is held constant, an increasein the number of commonalties should result in easier comparison (see Gen-tner & Markman, 1994, on relation between commonalities and similarity).Earlier we reasoned that ease of comparison increases the ability to processattribute information. Assuming that ease of comparison also facilitates partici-pants to perceive that there is a greater amount of information available forchoice, we expect participants to experience an overall higher choice-processsatisfaction when the level of ease of comparison is enhanced. Upon the removalof a choice option, i.e., information, participants’ level of choice-process satisfac-tion should significantly decrease relative to no option limitation.

In the next experiment, we manipulate the level of ease of comparison.Relative to a set of baseline options that have three commonalities and sixalignable differences, we enhance the level of ease of comparison by increasingthe number of commonalities and simultaneously reducing the number ofalignable differences—six commonalities and three alignable differences. Con-versely, relative to the same baseline options, we decrease the level of ease ofcomparison by keeping the same number of commonalities but substitutingnonalignable differences—three commonalities and six nonalignable differ-ences. The predictions are as follows: (1) The overall satisfaction with thedecision process should be higher for the participants in the enhanced-ease-of-comparison condition than in the baseline and reduced-ease conditions, and(2) participants should feel less satisfied facing an option limitation relativeto no option limitation, in both the baseline and enhanced-ease-of-comparisonconditions (i.e., the alignable-differences conditions); however, there shouldbe no such difference in the reduced-ease-of-comparison condition (i.e., thenonalignable-differences condition).

EXPERIMENT 3

Method

Subjects. One hundred five undergraduate students from the UCLA com-munity took part in this experiment in exchange for a payment of $5. Theycame to an auditorium and were randomly assigned to experimental conditions.

Stimuli. Three sets of three fictitious brands each were constructed, thereduced-ease-of-comparison nonalignable set (henceforth reduced-ease), thebaseline-ease-of-comparison alignable set (henceforth, baseline-ease), and theenhanced-ease-of-comparison alignable set (henceforth enhanced-ease), asshown in Table 2A and 2B. Each brand had nine attributes in total. Thereduced-ease and baseline-ease sets had brands that were constructed with


TABLE 2A

Added Individual Difference Attributes for Brands with Three Commonalities andSix Differences in Experiment 3


Alignable differences Can be stored for Can be stored for Can be stored for5 months 6 months 7 months

Nonalignable differences Has 0.5 g of protein Has 1% of daily Can be stored forvitamin C 7 months

Note. Commonalities are constant for all brands: easy to prepare, easy to store, and fairly lowcost per serving. The other five differences, alignable or nonalignable, for each brand are the sameas in Table 1. One fixed order of randomly mixed-up attributes was used for all brands.

TABLE 2B

Individual Attributes for Brands with Six Commonalities and Three Differences inExperiment 3


Alignable Medium-size kernels Good-size kernels Large kernelsdifferences Comes with microwave Comes with disposable Pops in its own bag

bowl microwave bagsCalories equal to a Calories equal to 20 Calories equal to a slice

tablespoon of sugar peanuts of bread

Note. Commonalities are constant for all brands: fairly low level of sodium, easy to prepare,easy to store, fairly low cost per serving, 0.5 g of protein, and, waterproof wrapping. One fixedorder of randomly mixed attributes was used for all brands.

three commonalities and six differences (nonalignable differences for the re-duced-ease and alignable differences for the baseline-ease). The enhanced-easeset had brands with six commonalities and three alignable differences.

Pretesting confirmed that the three brands in each of the three sets wererelatively equal in terms of brand desirability: the reduced-ease nonalignableset (A 5 6.58, B 5 6.58, C 5 6.70), F , 1; the baseline-ease alignable set(A 5 6.96, B 5 7.0, C 5 6.90), F , 1; and the enhanced-ease alignable set(A 5 6.01, B 5 6.10, C 5 6.34), F , 1.

Design. The experimental design took the form of a between-subjects partialfactorial design, 2 (Difference Type: alignable difference, nonalignable differ-ence) 3 2 (Availability: all options available, one option not available) 3 2(Number of Commonalities: three commonalities, six commonalities). The firsttwo factors are exactly the same as those in Experiment 1 and yield fourconditions that contain options with three commonalities: reduced-ease non-alignable/one option unavailable or all options available, baseline-easealignable/one option unavailable or all options available. The third factor gener-ates the enhanced-ease set conditions that have six commonalities in optiondescriptions: enhanced-ease/one option unavailable or all options available.There are six conditions in total.


Procedure. The procedure followed was identical to that used in Experiment1. Participants received the same instructions, were exposed to the stimulusbrands, made a choice, and then answered the choice-process satisfaction ques-tions. Half of the participants had all of the options available for choice, whilethe remaining half of the sample had a “tag” which read “Sold Out” pastedover the heading of Brand C.

Results

As in Experiment 1, a choice-process satisfaction index was created by aver-aging the items (Cronbach’s a 5 0.79). Mean satisfaction ratings across thesix conditions ranged from a low of 4.92 to a high of 7.04. See Fig. 3 for asummary of the cell means. Choice share data were almost equally distributedamong the brands for each condition, similar to those in Experiment 1 (non-alignable/C unavailable: A 5 50%, B 5 50%; nonalignable/all options available:A 5 38.9%, B 5 22.2%, C 5 38.9%; alignable/C unavailable: A 5 47.1%, B 5

52.9%; alignable/all options available: A 5 33.3%, B 5 33.3%, C 5 33.3%;enhanced alignable/C unavailable: A 5 48.89, B 5 51.1%; enhanced alignable/all options available: A 5 27.65%, B 5 35.2%, C 5 36.2%).

A 2 3 2 3 2 partial factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conductedon levels of choice-process satisfaction for participants (Box & Hunter, 1978).The overall model was significant, F(5, 99) 5 3.83, p , .01, as was the maineffect of availability, F(1, 99) 5 6.62, p , .001, and the main effect of numberof commonalities, F 5 3.74, p , .05. The main effect of availability suggeststhat the presence of an unavailable brand led to lower levels of satisfaction thanwhen all options were available. The main effect of the number of commonalitiessuggests that participants who were exposed to the enhanced-ease alignableset had overall higher levels of satisfaction than those who were given thebaseline-ease alignable set and reduced-ease nonalignable set. This finding is

FIG. 3. Choice-process satisfaction as a function of attribute alignability, option limitation,and ease of comparison. Common to each set of options in reduced-ease and baseline-ease arethree commonalities and six differences. Common to each set of options in enhanced-ease are sixcommonalities and three differences.


important, as it confirms our prediction that enhancing ease of comparisonshould increase overall level of satisfaction with the choice process.

Furthermore, the two-way interaction between availability and differencetype was significant, F(1, 99) 5 4.21, p , .05, replicating the results of Experi-ment 1. Under both the baseline-ease alignable and enhanced-ease alignableconditions, a significant decrease in participants’ choice-process satisfactiondue to “Brand C unavailable” was observed relative to “all options available”:M 5 4.92 vs 6.31, F(1, 99) 5 3.63, p 5 .05, and M 5 5.70 vs M 5 7.04, F(1,99) 5 5.29, p , .05. However, under the reduced-ease nonalignable set condi-tion, as expected, no such difference in satisfaction was observed for those whowere given an unavailable option (M 5 5.49) versus those who were not (M 5

5.27), F , 1. Consistent with our predictions, these results clearly show thatfeature alignability moderates people’s choice-process satisfaction when anoption from an equally attractive choice set was limited.

A separate follow-up 2 3 2 analysis of variance was conducted to furthercorroborate the findings. For participants in the reduced-ease nonalignable andthe baseline-ease alignable conditions, the 2 (difference type) 3 2 (availability)model yielded a significant interaction effect between difference type and avail-ability, F(1, 66) 5 3.97, p , .05, similar to the result obtained in Experiment1. Pooling across the baseline-ease alignable condition and the enhanced-easealignable condition, the 2 (number of commonalities) 3 2 (availability) modelrevealed a significant main effect of availability, F(1, 67) 5 11.76, p , .001, asexpected. More important, the model also revealed a significant main effect ofnumber of commonalities, F(1, 67) 5 3.67, p 5 .05. As we predicted, participantsexpressed higher levels of satisfaction in the enhanced-ease condition than inthe baseline-ease condition. No other effects were significant.

Discussion

In this experiment, we observed a contrast between all options available vsoption limitation for the baseline-ease condition as well as the enhanced-easecondition but not the reduced-ease condition. More important, we observed theexpected overall increase of satisfaction in the enhanced-ease condition relativeto the baseline-ease condition. These results suggest that ease of comparisonvia alignable differences (between the alignable and nonalignable sets) as wellas via commonalities (between the baseline-ease alignable and enhanced-easealignable sets) facilitates feature processing and increases satisfaction withthe decision process.

The contrast between all options available vs option limitation in the en-hanced-ease condition was approximately the same as that in the baseline-easecondition, though one might expect a larger contrast for the former conditionbecause of the enhancement in the ease of comparison. It seems reasonable tosuggest that the magnitude of any decrease in satisfaction due to option limita-tion is dependent upon ease of comparison as well as perceived amount ofinformation. Perhaps the ease of comparison through commonalities does notnecessarily contribute as much perceived option information as does the ease


of comparison through alignable differences. Thus, the contrast between optionavailability vs option limitation for our enhanced-ease conditions was not largerthan for the baseline-ease condition.

Experiments 2 and 3 together show that participants have the subjectiveexperience that they are attending to a greater amount of information relevantfor decision making in the alignable condition than in the nonalignable condi-tion. When people (in the alignable condition) are more aware that they areprocessing a greater amount of information that appears relevant for decisionmaking, they may feel that they are capable of judging the options. Thus,having one of the options limited makes them feel less satisfied about thedecision than people (in the nonalignable condition) who are less aware thatthere is much decision-relevant information to begin with for judgment. Assuggested earlier, processing of nonalignable differences is likely to be lesscomplete, because they are difficult to process and are less attended to, relativeto alignable differences.

Our results and analysis suggest that feature alignability and ease of compar-ison facilitate attribute information processing, which makes people moreaware of the amount of attribute information available of all options. In particu-lar, we have shown that nonalignable differences are not conducive to theprocessing of or the awareness of attribute information of options. Accordingto this view, when participants’ ability to process nonalignable differences isincreased, they could be made more aware of the information of all options.As a result, we should observe a similar pattern of choice-process satisfactionto that found with alignable-difference options. Experiment 4 is conducted totest this prediction.

EXPERIMENT 4

In Experiment 4, we use the same set of nonalignable-difference options asin Experiment 1 plus two additional nonalignable difference options, as shownin Table 3. We manipulate the level of ability to process the information byrequiring (vs not requiring) the participants to first pick three options out of

TABLE 3

Individual Attributes for Added Brands in Experiment 4

Brand D Brand E

Nonalignable differences Has 0.5 g of protein Has 1% of daily vitamin CVery salty Has some citric acidYellow corn Very fillingBox made with 1% recyclable With waterproof wrapping

paperTakes 7 min to pop Includes a very spicy topping

package

Note. Attributes of Brands A, B, and C are referred to in Table 1. Commonalities are constantfor all brands, same as in Table 1.


a set of five. The five options are constructed based on a pretest such that aftera fair amount of relatively intensive comparison and processing participantswill be able to select brands A, B, and C and eliminate brands D and E. Weassume that this consideration formation process will have forced the partici-pants to process and use nonalignable differences for decision making. After theconsideration set is formed, participants will be exposed to the unavailabilityof an option (vs all options are available) manipulation. We expect that theparticipants who are given the consideration formation manipulation shouldyield a higher level of choice-process satisfaction, and exhibit a significantdecrease in satisfaction when a choice option is limited relative to when alloptions are available.

Method

Subjects. Fifty-eight undergraduate students from UCLA participated inexchange for a payment of $5. As before, they reported to a classroom and wererandomly assigned to the conditions.

Stimuli. Five brands were constructed for this experiment. All five brandshad nine attributes (four commonalities and five nonalignable differences).Three of the five brands were identical to those nonalignable-difference optionsused in Experiment 1. The two additional brands had nonalignable differencesthat were judged to be less desirable than those of the other three brands. Therelationship in terms of desirability among the five brands was designed tomatch the pattern of A 5 B 5 C , D 5 E (A 5 5.93, B 5 5.89, C 5 6.12, D 5

4.95, E 5 4.80, on a 9-point scale). Attribute descriptions are provided inTable 3. This pattern was chosen because we wanted participants to form aconsideration set of A, B, and C and make their selections from the set of thethree original equally liked brands as in Experiment 1. Again, presentation ofthe brands from left to right was counterbalanced between subjects.

Design. Experiment 4 follows a 2 (Availability: all options available, oneoption not available) 3 2 (Consideration Set Formation: required, not required)between-subjects design.

Procedure. The procedure followed was similar to that followed in Experi-ments 1 and 3. Participants received the same instructions and were presentedwith the five brand stimuli. Half of the subjects were asked to examine theattribute descriptions and indicate which three of the five brands they wouldbe most likely to consider choosing by circling the brands. The other half wastold to examine the attribute descriptions and decide which brand they wouldconsider choosing. On the next page, all participants were presented with anotice and an “availability table” (which indicated which brands were currentlyavailable by having the term “available” or “not available” beside the brand).Participants were then asked to make a choice of popcorn, and to answer a setof questions regarding their satisfaction with the decision process.


Results and Discussion

As in previous experiments, a choice-process satisfaction index was created(Cronbach’s a 5 0.82). As shown in Fig. 4, the average satisfaction acrossconditions ranged from a low of 5.84 (for participants who received an unavail-ability announcement but were not asked to form and report a considerationset) to a high of 7.51 (for participants who were asked to form and report aconsideration set and did not receive the unavailability announcement). Allparticipants in the consideration set formation condition circled Brands A, B,and C as their set. The choice share data for the brands in each condition didnot show unusual outcomes that could contribute possible different satisfactionoutcomes (Not-Required/C unavailable: A 5 53.3%, B 5 46.7%; Not-Required/all options available: A 5 38.5%, B 5 23.1%, C 5 38.5%; Required/C unavailable:A 5 46.7%, B 5 53.3%; Required/all options available: A 5 40%, B 5 26.7%,C 5 33.3%). Note that participants included for analysis in the nonconsiderationformation condition were those who picked one of A, B, or C as their choice (twoparticipants who chose options D and E were not included in these analyses).

A 2 3 2 ANOVA was performed on the choice-process satisfaction scores,yielding a significant overall model, F(3, 54) 5 6.13, p , .01, a main effect ofavailability, F(1, 54) 5 6.28, p , .05, and a main effect of consideration setformation, F(1, 54) 5 7.84, p , .01. The main effect of availability showedsignificantly lower levels of satisfaction for participants who had their choicesets restricted by receiving an unavailable option. The main effect of consider-ation set formation suggested that participants who were required to form aconsideration set had significantly higher levels of choice-process satisfactionthan did those not required to form a consideration set. These results confirmedour prediction.

Moreover, the two-way interaction was significant, F(1, 54) 5 4.27, p , .05.As predicted, for the condition in which participants were not required to forma consideration set, we found no reliable difference in choice-process satisfaction

FIG. 4. Choice-process satisfaction as a function of consideration set formation and optionlimitation.


between those receiving an unavailable option versus those for whom all optionswere available for choice (M 5 5.87 vs M 5 5.94), F(1, 54) , 1. This resultreplicated the findings of the previous experiments for the nonalignable differ-ence set of options. More importantly, a planned contrast of conditions in whichparticipants were required to form a consideration set found a significantdifference in satisfaction. Participants who were shown an unavailable optionhad lower satisfaction ratings than those for whom all options were available(M 5 6.12 vs M 5 7.51), F(1, 54) 5 10.02, p , .01.

These results clearly suggest that requiring participants to form and reporta subset of options that they would consider choosing made the participantsincrease feature processing. The fact that all participants select A, B, and C,which are better options than D and E, in their formed consideration set is aclear indication that a fair amount of processing and judgment has been per-formed on the attribute information. When people are made more aware of theinformation about the options and use the information in consideration setformation, having one of the considered brands limited will make them feelless satisfied about the decision process than if they have all options availablefor decision.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The experiments were designed to examine the determinants of people’ssatisfaction with the choice process, particularly option information (featurealignability, ease of comparison, and perceived amount of information) andoption limitation. Consistent with research on similarity and comparison (e.g.,Houston et al., 1989, 1991; Medin, Goldstone, & Markman, 1995; Sanbonmatsuet al., 1991), we hypothesized that the nature of the difference features mayhave differential impact on the perceived ease of attribute comparison andamount of information of options that is relevant for choice and therefore maymake people have differential experience with the choice process when one ofthe equally attractive choice options becomes unavailable.

In Experiment 1, we found that participants’ satisfaction with choice processwas significantly higher when the equally attractive options were describedby alignable differences than when they were described by nonalignable differ-ences. Furthermore, when participants were exposed to a set of equally attrac-tive options that had alignable differences, their satisfaction ratings decreasedsignificantly from when all options were available to when one option wasmade unavailable. However, in choice sets that had nonalignable differencesamong the options, choice-process satisfaction was low overall regardless ofwhether an option was made unavailable or not.

As an explanation for the underlying process, in Experiment 2 we demon-strated that people were more likely to perceive greater ease of comparisonand more information of options as relevant for choice when presented withalignable-difference options than when presented with nonalignable-differenceoptions. Having some of that information psychologically unavailable for adecision would decrease people’s satisfaction with the choice process relative


to having all the options available, more for the alignable-difference optionsthan for the nonalignable-difference options. Processing of nonalignable differ-ences is likely to be less complete, because they are difficult to compare andprocess, and hence less attended to. Consequently, people perceive a loweramount of useful or relevant information for choice and may feel incapableof making judgments with the information. Making unavailable some of theinformation that is perceived to be not very useful versus not making it unavail-able, therefore, does not make much of difference. Experiment 3 replicated thefindings of Experiment 1 and further showed that enhanced ease of comparisonthrough the use of fewer difference features and more common features in-creased the overall level of choice-process satisfaction.

To further corroborate the proposed process, we conducted Experiment 4 topresent parallel results supporting the explanation that a process conduciveto feature processing and awareness of amount of information of all optionswill enhance choice-process satisfaction. When participants’ ability to processnonalignable-difference features is increased through being required to forma subset of options for consideration, participants expressed higher levels ofsatisfaction with the choice process. Moreover, these participants expressedless satisfaction with the process when an option became unavailable relativeto when all options were available, whereas those whose processing ability wasnot increased exhibited no such difference in choice-process satisfaction.

Many decision-making environments involve comparison of options. Someof the options have alignable aspects of information, while others list onlyaspects that are unique to each option. The data from our studies suggest thatparticipants’ affective response toward the choice process is related to how theoptions are represented. Past research has examined the impact of prechoiceconflict due to valence of features on satisfaction with the outcome (Houstonet al., 1991), but not on satisfaction with the decision process per se. In anexploratory study of satisfaction with the decision process, Westbrook et al.(1978) identified a number of potential influences, one of the more importantof which was breadth and availability of choice options. The current researchfocused specifically on participants’ satisfaction with the process of decisionmaking. Prior to this research, little was known about participants’ affectivereactions or feelings toward the choice process in the context of feature compari-son and option limitation. Our results suggest that participants may havedifferent subjective experiences with the ease of comparison and perceivedamount of information relevant for choice, depending on which type of differencefeatures are present. Because of these differences, people’s choice-process satis-faction is higher when options are described with alignable differences andprocessed easily and completely. These findings are an important addition toour knowledge that difference features that are comparable are, relative tononcomparable difference features, weighted more heavily in preference forma-tion and used more often in justifications of decision-making behavior (Mark-man & Medin, 1995; Slovic & MacPhillamy, 1974; Zhang & Markman, 1998).

Additionally, these findings suggest the potential for a broad model of the


antecedents of choice-process satisfaction that perhaps includes not only suffi-ciency and quality of information that is expected by the decision maker(Spreng, MacKenzie, & Olshavsky, 1996; Westbrook et al., 1978) and optionlimitation (Fitzsimons, 1998), but also perceived ease of making comparisonsand the perceived amount of information relevant for choice. Perceived easeof comparison is manipulated mainly through feature alignability on multipleattribute dimensions. Although our studies indicate that ease of comparisonfacilitates perceived amount of information, the interaction between these vari-ables can be complex. For example, an increase in ease of comparison may notbe accompanied by a similar increase in the perceived amount of informationif only two as opposed to six attribute dimensions are described. In the caseof two, ease of comparison will be high, whereas the amount of informationmay be low. Future development of a model of decision-process satisfactionshould examine these interactions in detail.

Finally, the present research may have implications for choice decision re-search. In choice studies, one typically examines participants’ response to apair of options that are both described on a set of common dimensions, not ona set of unique features (see exception of Houston et al., 1989). Take, forexample, the subject of deferred decision making. People are more likely todefer decision when the choice between X and Y is difficult (e.g., when thealternatives are about equally attractive but not identical) than when thechoice is easy (e.g., when X dominates Y) (e.g., Tversky & Shafir, 1992). Assuggested by our results, choice may be even more difficult when X and Y aredescribed by a set of unique features. In such a case, participants are more likelyto undergo a less satisfying experience when conducting feature comparison dueto nonalignable differences of the alternatives in addition to decisions betweenalternatives that are relatively similar in attractiveness. Deferred decisionshould be more likely to happen, and people should be more resolute about thedeferred decision, when choice options have nonalignable features rather thanalignable features (Zhang & Sood, 1999). When the choice-process results insatisfaction (through ease of comparison and perceived sufficient amount ofinformation), it will provide an environment that is more likely to foster adecision-seeking attitude; on the other hand, unsatisfactory experience willevoke decision aversion (see Beattie, Baron, Hershey, & Spranca, 1994, ondecision attitudes).

In conclusion, people’s experience and satisfaction with the choice processcan be influenced by both information about the options in a choice set andoption limitation. Information that is alignable (vs nonalignable), easier toprocess, and perceived to offer a greater amount of information for decisionmaking increases satisfaction. Alignable information, in particular, facilitatesease of comparison and improves the subjective experience with the perceptionof more relevant information for decision making. Thus, having a choice optionunavailable (vs all options available) has a bigger impact on people’s satisfactionwith the choice process for alignable choice sets than for nonalignable choicesets.


REFERENCES

Andersen Consulting. (1996). Where to look for incremental sales gains: The retail problem of out-of-stock merchandise. Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council.

Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic Press.

Beattie, J., Baron, J., Hershey, J. C., & Spranca, M. D. (1994). Psychological determinants ofdecision attitude. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 7, 129–144.

Box, G. E. P., & Hunter, W. G. (1978). Statistics for experimenters. New York: Wiley.

Farquhar, P. H., & Pratkanis, A. R. (1987). Phantom choices: The effects of unavailable alternativeson decision making (Technical Report No. 87-2). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University.

Festinger L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.

Fitzsimons, G. J. (1998). Consumer response to stock-outs (Working Paper No. 258). Los Angeles:UCLA Marketing Studies Center.

Fitzsimons, G. J., Greenleaf, E. A., & Lehmann, D. R. (1997). Decision and consumption satisfaction:Implications for channel relations (Working Paper No. 313). Los Angeles: UCLA MarketingStudies Center.

Gentner, D. (1983). Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science,7, 155–170.

Gentner, D. (1989). The mechanisms of analogical learning. In S. Vosniadou & A. Ortony (Eds.),Similarity and analogical reasoning (pp. 199–241). New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Gentner, D., & Markman, A. (1994). Structural alignment in comparison: No difference withoutsimilarity. Psychological Science, 5, 152–158.

Hess, J. D., & Gersner, E. (1987). Loss leader pricing and rain check policy. Marketing Science,6, 358–374.

Houston, D. A., Sherman, S. J., & Baker, S. M. (1989). The influence of unique features anddirection of comparison on preferences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 121–141.

Houston, D. A., Sherman, S. J., & Baker, S. M. (1991). Feature matching, unique features, andthe dynamics of the choice process: Predecision conflict and postdecision satisfaction. Journalof Experimental Social Psychology, 27, 411–430.

Luce, R. D. (1959). Individual choice behvior: A theoretical analysis. New York: Wiley.

Markman, A. B., & Gentner, D. (1993). Splitting the differences: A structural alignment view ofsimilarity. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 517–535.

Markman, A. B., & Gentner, D. (1996). Commonalities and differences in similarity Comparisons.Memory and Cognition, 24, 235–249.

Markman, A. B., & Medin, D. L. (1995). Similarity and alignment in choice. OrganizationalBehavior and Human Decision Processes, 63, 117–130.

Medin, D. L, Goldstone, R. L., & Markman, A. B. (1995). Comparison and choice: Relations betweenSimilarity processes and decision process. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 2, 1–19.

Nowlis, S. M., & Simonson, I. (1997). Attribute–Task compatibility as a determinant of consumerPreference reversals. Journal of Marketing Research, 34, 205–218.

Pratkanis, A. R., & Farquhar, P. H. (1992). A brief history of research on phantom alternatives:Evidence for seven empirical generalizations about phantoms. Basic and Applied Social Psychol-ogy, 13, 103-n122.

Sanbonmatsu, D. M., Kardes, F. R., & Gibson, B. D. (1991). The role of attribute knowledge andoverall evaluations in comparative judgment. Organizational Behavior and Human DecisionProcesses, 48, 131–146.

Sanbonmatsu, D. M., Kardes, F. R., & Herr, P. M. (1992). The role of prior knowledge and missinginformation in multi-attribute evaluation. Organizational Behavior Human Decision Processes,51, 76–91.


Sanbonmatsu, D. M., Kardes, F. R., Posavac, S. S., & Houghton, D.C. (1997). Contextual influenceson judgment based on limited information. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Pro-cesses, 69, 251–264.

Sheppard, B. H., Lewicki, R. J., and Minton, J. W. (1992). Organizational and justice: The searchfor fairness in the workplace. New York: Macmillan.

Slovic, P., & MacPhillamy, D. (1974). Dimensional commensurability and cue utilization in compara-tive judgment. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 11, 172–194.

Spreng, R. A., MacKenzie, S. B., & Olshavsky, R. W. (1996). A reexamination of the determinantsof consumer satisfaction. Journal of Marketing, 60, 15–32.

Thibault, J. W., & Walker, L. (1975). Freedom and reactance. New York: Wiley.

Tversky, A. (1977). Features of similarity. Psychological Review, 84, 327–352.

Tversky, A., & Gati, I. (1982). similarity, separability, and the triangle inequity. PsychologicalReview, 89, 123–154.

Tversky, A., & Shafir, E. (1992). Choice under conflict: The dynamics of deferred decision. Psycholog-ical Science, 6, 358–361.

Westbrook, R. A., Newman, J. W., & Taylor, J. R. (1978). Satisfaction/dissatisfaction in the purchasedecision process. Journal of Marketing, October, 54–60.

Zhang, S., & Markman, A. (1998). Overcoming early entrant advantage: The role of alignable andnonalignable differences. Journal of Marketing Research, 35, 413–426.

Zhang, S., & Sood, S. (1999). Option information as the determinant of choice deferral. Manuscriptin preparation.

Received: June 3, 1998

choice-process satisfaction: the influence of attribute ...gavan/bio/gjf...the degree of...

Documents