Sleep On It - Taking Your Mind Off A Decision
Can Help
April 21, 2009
Remember when the answer to a big question came to you in the shower? Is
"sleep on it" really good advice for someone making a big decision? A
new study Journal of Consumer Research examines the way distraction
affects consumers' product decisions.
Author Davy Lerouge (Tilburg University) wondered whether distracting people
from a decision for some moments helps them to evaluate products. He also set
out to identify the specific conditions under which distraction is or is not
helpful.
"Suppose you are choosing among several houses for sale," Lerouge
writes. "Such a choice typically involves large amounts of information with
each alternative having its specific pros and cons. Advice that consumers often
receive from others when making such complex decisions is "let the
information rest for a while" or "sleep on it." But is such
common advice helpful?
Lerouge demonstrates that distraction can help decision-making, depending on the
manner in which consumers process the available product information. "I
find that distraction only helps consumers who tend to perceive products as
coherent entities and typically hold clear good/bad representations of
products," write Lerouge. "However, it does not help consumers who
typically focus on the specific features of products and hold more mixed product
representations."
To arrive at his conclusions, the author created experiments where participants
evaluated four different products. Some participants were induced into a "configural"
mindset, meaning that they were told to focus on their overall impression of the
items. Another group was asked to form a detailed impression ("featural"
mindset) noting positive and negative features. Some participants were
distracted with anagram tasks and others were not. The people in the configural
mindset made more accurate product evaluations after they were distracted.
"Consumers with a configural mindset differentiate more after distraction
because they can rely on mental product representations that are more coherent
than those of consumers with a featural mindset," the author explains.
"These polarized product representations help consumers to better
differentiate between product alternatives."
Davy Lerouge. "Evaluating the Benefits of Distraction on Product
Evaluations: The Mindset Effect." Journal of Consumer Research:
October 2009.
Source:
Mary-Ann Twist
University of Chicago Press Journals
Medical News Today: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com
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