Experiment with jam about the difficulties of choice (Category Economics)

There is a classic experiment about the complexity of choice, which was conducted and published in the whitepaper.When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?" 25 years ago. This experiment is often used to argue for creating services to help you choose anything. But it seems worth looking inside the experiment and subsequent research on the subject. Let's start with the original experiment with jam tasting in an elite grocery store.

Experiment conditions:

• Stand with 24 Different types of jam Wilkin & Sons
• Stand with 6 same-branded
• Buyers got a coupon for $1 tasting
• The test options were spaced in time Results of the original study:
• 60The percentage of buyers came to the stand with 24 jam
• 40% came to the stand with 6 species
• But only 3% of buyers bought jam after tasting a wide range
• While 30% bought jam after tasting a limited selection This study became the basis for Barry Schwartz’s “choice paradox” theory and gained wide popularity.

This paradox of choice turned out to be a hot topic, and other scientists have tried to analyze and/or repeat it. Quite an interesting meta-anlysis made by Benjamin Scheibehenne and others in the article.Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload" 2010 years. As for the key findings of this meta-study, they are Average size of selection overload effect (choice overload) It's almost zero. There is considerable variability between studies Failed to identify sufficient conditions for selection overload Many attempts to replicate the original jam experiment were unsuccessful.

Further, this topic continued to be investigated and it became clear that the following factors influenced the choice overload effect. Type of solution and complexity of options Having clear preferences among consumers

• Context of the decision (for example, time pressure) Individual differences between decision makers

By the way, meta-analysis I found that more choices are more useful: When consumers have clearly defined preferences When choosing the amount of consumption (size, quantity, ...) In situations where additional options are perceived as relevant and distinguishable

As a result, if you’re told the jam experiment and the complexity of choice, the current understanding suggests that the impact of choice on consumer behavior is much more complex and context-dependent than originally thought. The simple formula “less choices = more purchases” was too simplistic to explain real consumer behavior.

#Economics #Brain #Psychology #Management