Evoked Set Formation From the Perspective of Decision Making as an Instance of Categorization

The thesis reports an experimental investigation of the impact of (1) similarity of choice alternatives, (2) number of available alternatives, and (3) purpose of information processing on Evoked Set size and content. Subjects were 204 students, mostly undergraduates, taking courses from the Business Administration department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois State University at Normal. The subjects were instructed to assume they were in the market for an apartment to rent and were assigned to one of the following similarity groups: (1) LOW similarity (2) HIGH similarity (3) SEGmented alternatives; i.e. apartments divided into three clusters of high within-cluster similarity and low between-cluster similarity. The latter group (SEG) was divided into two groups, one group exposed to 12, the other to 18 apartments. The purpose of information processing treatment consisted in assigning the subjects to two groups, one group instructed to designate which alternatives they would consider, the other group asked to list acceptable apartments. The apartments were described in terms of dichotomous attributes and information was given in matrix format.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business Administration

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Troye, Sigurd Villads

• Business Administration, General

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8410059

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/70449