Countdown-The Effect of Individual Differences on Consumer Decision Making

• Main Authors: Yen-Ting Chen, 陳彥廷
• Other Authors: 葉怡玉
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/s32yav

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 心理學研究所 === 107 === Prior research has shown that individual differences in decision tendency and time pressure influence consumer behaviors. Yet, no study has investigated how these two factors conjointly affect choice behaviors. Individual differences focused on maximizing tendency as previous studies have shown that maximizers consider more attributes to be important in consumer decision making compared with satisficers. We postulated that this difference will be enlarged particularly when consumers are under time pressure. In Study 1a, a scenario of buying a camera was presented to the participants with either 32 or 8 options. Three types of time pressure (price promotion under time constraint, stockout, and countdown) and one control condition without any time pressure were manipulated. A total of 281 participants were randomly assigned to one of the eight conditions and were asked to buy a camera. The results showed that none of the attributes significantly predicted the choice of camera when there were eight options. This null finding may have arisen from the fact that participants were familiar with the buying context and were able to integrate all attributes for each camera so that none of the attributes independently predicted the choice. When there were more options for choice, the maximizers considered more attributes to be important than satisficers as expected. Yet, this difference remained the same under the stockout context. As the sample size was small in each group under each buying context, we conducted Study 1b focusing on the context of 32 options under four time constraints. A total of 232 participants completed the study and their data were combined with those of Study 1a. The results showed no individual differences in the control condition where no time pressure was imposed on the choice. In both the stockout and countdown conditions, the satisficers only considered brand to be important whereas the maximizers added evaluation as an important attribute. With a discount offered under time constraint, all participants considered evaluation to be important compared with the control condition. Moreover, the maximizers added price as an important attribute for considering which one to buy. Taken together, the results showed that individual differences in decision tendency and purchase contexts conjointly influence the decision of buying. Both factors should be considered in marketing and for improving shopping experiences.