Factors Affecting Integration of Outcomes of Concurrent Decisions

Abstract

Boe, O., 2000. Factors affecting integration of outcomes of concurrent decisions.Department of Psychology. Göteborg University, Sweden.When outcomes of concurrent decisions are evaluated, they may either be integrated orsegregated. The present studies investigated when and how integration occurs. The aim ofStudy I was to investigate whether an integration principle (the loss-sensitivity principle)could be extended to account for the integration of outcomes of concurrent decisions. Thisprinciple has been shown to hold for integration of prior outcomes with future outcomes.It was then expected that only the loss outcomes of concurrent decisions would beintegrated. The two experiments conducted in Study I validated previous resultsconcerning integration of prior outcomes, but did not show that the principle generalizedto integration of the outcomes of concurrent decisions. Participants were in bothexperiments presented with fictitious non-context gambles. Study II was conducted withthe primary aim of investigating how casually relatedness, in the form of means-endrelations between consumer products, affects integration. Another aim was to investigatethe effect of uncertainty. The results showed that participants integrate means-end relatedalternatives as well as that uncertainty of outcomes of concurrent decisions counteractsintegration. The experiment conducted in Study III demonstrated an attentional bias in thatcausally related outcomes of concurrent decisions are not evaluated and therefore notchosen although more attractive than single outcomes. Finally, Study IV furtherinvestigated the attentional bias. Participants were asked to make fictitious choices ofstores located at different distances where they could purchase the same consumerproducts at different prices. Attitudes toward driving were independently assessed bymeans of a questionnaire. A supporting finding was that participants with a more positiveattitude toward driving chose more frequently to drive to stores within walking distancethan participants with a less positive attitude towards driving who more frequently choseto walk to stores at driving distances.Key words: Decision making, concurrent decisions, integration.Ole Boe, Department ofPsychology, Göteborg Universi&, Box 500, S-40530 Gothenburg, Sweden. Phone(voice): +46 31 773 4284, fkx): +46 31 773 4628. Email: Ole.Boe@psy.gu.seISSN 1 lOl-718X ISRN GU/PSYK/AVH-72-SEISBN 91-628-4231-5