Decision making with information search constraints: A process-tracing study

Abstract

The present study examined the influence of information search constraints both on the information search pattern and on the perceived inner states during the decision making process. We arranged the following three information search constraints con-ditions: (1) An upper-limited-search (UL) condition in which a decision maker could not examine the same piece of information for the decision task more than once, (2) A lower-limited-search (LL) condition in which a decision maker had to examine every piece of information for the decision task more than once, and (3) A non-limited-search (NL) condition in which a decision maker could examine any number of information. Participants consisted of 76 female and male university students, which were randomly assigned into one out of three conditions. In line with the simplifying and the mobilizing hypotheses, the participants in the UL condition more often used non-compensatory simplifying decision strategies and more slowly checked for information than partici-pants in the LL and NL conditions.