Option Attachment: When Deliberating Makes Choosing Feel like Losing

Common sense suggests that consumers make more satisfying decisions as they consider their options more closely. Yet we argue that such close consideration can have undesirable consequences because it may induce attachment to the options—a sense of prefactual ownership of the choice options. When consumers then select one option, they effectively lose this prefactual possession of the other, nonchosen options. This yields a feeling of discomfort (“choosing feels like losing”) and an increase in the attractiveness of the forgone option, compared to its appeal before the choice. A series of nine experiments provides evidence of this phenomenon and support for our explanation.