The impact of the amount of available information on decision delay: The role of common features

In two studies, we show that features shared by products (common features) do not cancel out during the decision-making process but in fact are consequential as they decrease desire for delay in decision making. In study 1, we show that as the amount of available information about product features increases, decision delay decreases in spite of the additional information being identical across the products. Further, we also find that this effect is partially mediated by information adequacy. In study 2, we show that despite the overall difficulty of making decisions under avoidance–avoidance versus approach–approach conflict, an increase in common features decreases decision delay under both conflict conditions.