Elusive optima: A process tracing analysis of procedural rationality in mobile phone connection plan choices

• Published in: Journal of economic behavior & organization Vol. 161; pp. 303 - 322
• Main Authors: Earl, Peter E., Friesen, Lana, Shadforth, Christopher
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.05.2019
• Subjects: Choice overload; Consumer capabilities; Procedural rationality; Process tracing; D12; Process tracing; D03; Choice overload; C91; Consumer capabilities; Procedural rationality; D83
• ISSN: 0167-2681; 1879-1751
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2019.03.021

•Evidence of major shortfalls in procedural rationality.•Evidence of poor strategic thinking about how to deal with choice overload.•Poor conceptual understanding of mobile phone plans and pricing systems.•Evidence of cognitive and calculation errors. This paper reports an experiment in which subjects were rewarded on the basis of how close they came to finding the cheapest mobile phone plan to serve a particular usage remit by searching freely in the Internet. During the task, subjects were required to ‘think aloud’ and recordings were made of what they said and what they did on their computer screens. Analysis of the screen-capture movie recordings revealed major shortfalls in procedural rationality, including poor strategic thinking about how to deal with choice overload, poor conceptual understanding of mobile phone plans and pricing systems, as well as cognitive and calculation errors. Our novel method leads to a very different policy focus from that implied by viewing the problem in terms of excess information per se and irrationality as driven by innate heuristics and biases.