A Further Investigation of the Attentional Bias in Concurrent Decisions

Purpose of Study: An experiment was conducted to investigate whether an attentional bias explains why decision makers sometimes fail to integrate outcomes of concurrent decisions. Method Forty-eight undergraduates recruited as participants were asked to make fictitious choices of stores located at different distances where they could purchase the same consumer products at different prices. In one condition the participants were asked to also make a choice between driving and walking to the stores, in another condition to choose between the stores when they had no other option than to walk or drive. Attitudes toward driving were independently assessed by means of a questionnaire. Findings and Results A finding supporting the attentional bias was that participants with a more positive attitude toward driving chose more frequently to drive to stores within walking distance than participants with a less positive attitude towards driving.