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The Cornell Food & Brand Lab

New Research Methods

Choice Under Restrictions

Summary

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Restrictions surround us. Speed limits, social mores, medical conditions, store inventory, and recommendations all limit our choices. Despite the ubiquity and importance of restrictions, little effort has been put forth to categorize restrictions or link individual and situational factors to psychological, physiological, and behavioral reactions to them. We base our observations on a framework of restrictions and behavior that takes into account the nature of a restriction, factors that impact response to it, cognitive, emotional and psychological reactions to it, and the behavior that results from it. We examined types of restrictions based on their sources, objects, characteristics, and presentation, such as those externally versus internally imposed, those aimed at individuals versus groups, and those with varying stringency and time frames, and how those restrictions are framed. We found that reactions to restrictions vary according to general situations, individual factors, and the goals that are involved or threatened. We posit several hypotheses as follows:

  1. Consumers will react more favorably to restrictions that they perceive to be minimally different from their initial goals.
  2. Consumers will be motivated to interpret restrictions and goals in a way that their initial goals seem as close as possible to the restrictions imposed upon them.
  3. Restrictions on future behavior appear more summary and lead to less compliance with these restrictions.
  4. Current behavior resulting from anticipated future restrictions cause consumers to focus on immediate opportunities to indulge, leading to more compliance with restrictions.
  5. Regulatory fit between how the goals and restrictions are presented will create more positive responses to the regulations.

We believe that this framework can help those imposing restrictions maximize both compliance and consumer perception of said restrictions as well as lead to more research on assessing choice under restriction.

For more information, see Botti, Simona, Susan Broniarczyk, Gerald Haubl, Ron Hill, Yanliu Huang, Barbara Kahn, Praveen Kopalle, Donald Lehmann, Joel Urbany, and Brian Wansink (2009), "Choice Under Restrictions," Marketing Letters, 19:3–4, 183–199. doi: 10.1007/s11002–008–9035–4

The final publication is available at springerlink.com.

Contact:
Brian Wansink, PhD
Food and Brand Lab, Director
110 Warren Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Email: foodandbrandlab@cornell.edu