Reliance on Numerical Precision: Compatibility between Accuracy versus Efficiency Goals and Numerical Precision Level Influence Attribute Weighting in Two-Stage Decisions

Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2021 · Volume 31 · Issue 1

Abstract

This research examines how the weighting of an attribute is jointly affected by attribute precision and decision stage. Building on prior work suggesting (a) that less (more) precise numerical values are easier to process (more accurate), (b) that decision-makers' motivation to be efficient (accurate) is greater when creating a consideration set (making a final choice), and (c) that decision-makers tend to overweight information that is compatible with their goals, we hypothesize that when creating a consideration set (making a choice) participants tend to assign greater weight to less (more) precise attributes. Five studies (two of them reported in the Appendix S1) offer triangulating evidence for these predictions. Overall, this work contributes to research on numerical cognition, efficiency versus accuracy trade-offs, attribute weighting, and two-stage decisions.

Keywords

Accuracy versus efficiency, Attribute weighting, Compatibility, Numerical cognition, Precision, Trade-offs, Two-stage decisions

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