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ISSN : 1738-3110
The Effect of Resource Depletion on Deciding on Product Assortments Size
Park, Cheong-Kyu
Lim, Hyun-Woo
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Abstract
Purpose - Prior research has suggested that consumers typically prefer to have a larger number of options. However, preference of assortment size may depend on how depleted resources in consumers' mind are. Reduced capacity for self-regulation by resource depletion makes people rely on more intuitive and less effortful decision processing. When they are mentally depleted, people are likely to focus on the choice difficulty from large assortment, which leads to preference for the small assortment when they make a decision. It could be an important question potentially how being in a depleted mode through effortful self-regulation will influence on the evaluation of assortment size. To answer this questioner, we hypothesized that being engaged in self-regulation, as compared with not being engaged in self-regulation, will influence on the evaluation of product assortment size such as attractiveness, difficulty of choice, and anticipated regret. Research design, data, and methodology - In this study, we first manipulated self-regulatory resource availability using a self-regulation task (i.e., instructing participants to solve Sudoku puzzle vs. to solve diagram cube by filling any diagrams that they prefer into cube instead of number) and asked to indicate the difficulty of the tasks available to them ("How much difficulty did you feel when you complete the task?") Next, participants were asked to imagine that they were planning to buy a laptop at one of the two stores (small assortment: 6 options vs. large assortment: 30 options), both offering good quality of products. After reading the product descriptions, participants were instructed to consider all the information and choose a store that they would like to shop. Finally we measured the choice difficulty, evaluation of product assortments, and anticipated regret on a 7-point scale. We conducted two-way ANOVA in testing the main hypothesis that depleted consumers will show poorer subsequent self-control than non-depleted consumers when they make a decision in large assortment. Results - Compared with non-depleted participants, depleted participants showed the bigger difference from the degree of choice difficulty and product attractiveness between large and small assortments, but the result revealed only a significant interaction effect of resource depletion and assortment size on choice difficulty. Also depleted participants showed the smaller difference from the degree of anticipated regret between large and small assortments than non-depleted participants. Conclusion - Depleted individuals by a prior task are relatively effortless and intuitive form of choosing products so that they try to avoid making effortful trade-offs among choice difficulty such as large assortment, compare with non-depleted individuals. However, for anticipated regret, non-depleted individuals in small assortment anticipate more regret by excluding or at least restricting the possibility of buying attractive items or another kind of potential items than depleted individuals, regardless less choice difficulty in small option. To sum up, it is important to note that individuals are influenced by self-regulatory resources and their self-regulatory conditions contribute to the overall positive or negative impact of product assortment on choice.
- keywords
- Product Assortment, Resource Depletion, Choice Difficulty, Anticipated Regret
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