How More Options Decrease the Compromise Effect: Investigating Boundary Conditions for the Compromise Effect in Travel Decisions

Abstract

Travelers often demonstrate the compromise effect—a tendency to choose the intermediate option(s) when facing difficult trade-off decisions. The compromise effect has been replicated in very specific settings where typically only two or three options were available. This research extends our understanding of the compromise effect by examining the impact of the number of options on travelers’ choices. Based on two different accounts (i.e., attribute distance account vs. decision complexity account), we predict that the compromise effect will be attenuated as the number of options in a choice set increases. Four experimental studies provide supporting evidence for this argument and support the attribute distance account as the main underlying mechanism. This research contributes to the extant tourism and travel choice literature by responding to the call to investigate the compromise effect in complex buying contexts.