Decision Making When the Acceptable Options Become Unavailable

Research examined what decision makers do when, after screening out unacceptable options in preparation for making a choice from among the acceptable survivors, they find that all of the survivors have become unavailable and that no new options are forthcoming. Subjects were presented options in the form of rooms to rent and were required to screen them to prepare a "short list" from which a choice could be made. They also rated the importance of the room′s characteristics. Then they were told that the rooms on the short list all had been rented, and that no new rooms had become available so they would have to create a new short list from among the previously rejected rooms. Then they rescreened the rejected options and rerated the importance of the characteristics of the rooms. It was found that nearly 90% of the subjects would prefer to begin again with new options rather than rescreen rejected options. It also was found that when forced to rescreen rejected options, subjects reduced their ratings of the importance of the options′ characteristics, apparently in an effort to compensate, at least in part, for having to select options that, only moments before, had been regarded as unacceptable. Efforts to discourage ratings reductions proved futile. Implications of the results for screening and choice are discussed.