Browsing by Author "Lindholm, Emilia"

The choice overload hypothesis states that a large number of options to choose from may lead to adverse consequences in consumer decision making, such as a decrease in post-choice satisfaction or the motivation to choose. Several studies provide evidence that when choosing from a large selection consumers get more frustrated, are less satisfied with the choice and more likely to leave the store empty handed. However, there are contradictory results on choice overload. This is because there are numerous factors that moderate the impact of assortment size on choice overload. The question of interest in this review is whether choice overload occurs in food related choices and how. Yet, this question cannot be answered properly based on previous research. Instead, it is beneficial to examine the factors moderating choice overload to get an understanding of the situations where choice overload effect arises. Factors including consumer preferences, making choices for others and unconscious information processing reduce the choice overload effect, whereas consumer expertise and responsibility to account for a decision increase the effect. These are so called intrinsic subjective factors. In addition, several extrinsic objective factors moderate choice overload. Additional research is needed to fully understand the choice overload effect on decision making.