Premium
Decision Difficulty in the Age of Consumer Empowerment
Author(s) -
Broniarczyk Susan M.,
Griffin Jill G.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1016/j.jcps.2014.05.003
Subject(s) - empowerment , preference , task (project management) , consumer choice , key (lock) , decision aids , maximization , marketing , psychology , representation (politics) , freedom of choice , computer science , business , social psychology , economics , microeconomics , political science , medicine , market economy , alternative medicine , computer security , management , pathology , economic growth , politics , law
In this review, we examine the impact of two key factors of consumer empowerment–choice freedom and expansion of information‐‐on the choice difficulty consumers experience in today's decision environment. We posit that though these two consumer empowerment factors offer numerous potential benefits, they also can magnify such sources of decision difficulty as task complexity, tradeoff difficulty, and preference uncertainty. Next we review several key moderators, including consumer knowledge, mental representation, and maximization tendencies as well as information type and organization, that can exacerbate or mitigate the effect of these consumer empowerment factors on decision difficultly outcomes. Lastly, we examine the effectiveness of decision aids in assisting consumers navigate the complexity of today's decision environment, and we identify areas for future investigation.