[The strategy of decision makers in binary choices at the last phase of multi-alternative decision process].
The process of decision in a multi-alternative choice task is said to consist of two phases. In the first phase, undesirable alternatives are eliminated roughly on the basis of a few attributes. Then, in the second, the remaining alternatives are carefully evaluated and final choice is made. The purpose of this study was to determine how many alternatives survive the initial screening. Ninety students were asked to choose the best driving school from one of three sets, consisting of three, six, or nine alternatives. Subsequently, they were asked to recall the attributes of each alternative. In the "six" and "nine" alternative conditions, mean recalls for the third-ranking alternative was markedly lower than those of the top two alternatives. Moreover, the difference between mean recalls for the top two was very small. Within these multi-alternative conditions, the results suggested that two alternatives survived through the screening phase, and one of them was chosen in the last phase.
Department of Communication, Kansai-jogakuin, Junior College, Miki.
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Nakayachi
D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall