Combating Choice Overload via a Growth Mindset in the Age of Social Media

Introduction

Marketers and retailers strive to offer numerous product and service options to their customers. Technological advancement and product innovation have contributed to an abundance of choices for consumers (Rahman 2021a; Rahman 2021b). Offering more choices to consumers has benefits like stimulating variety-seeking behaviour and boosting enjoyment of shopping (Herpen and Pieters 2002). However, more is not always merrier as too many choices can result in choice overload among consumers. Also known as overchoice, this concept refers to the feeling of being cognitively overwhelmed from an abundance of choice options (Toffler 1971). Since the coinage of the term, many studies have confirmed that too many choices can be detrimental (Settle and Golden 1974; Keller and Staelin 1987; Iyengar and Lepper 2000; Misuraca and Teuscher 2013; Greenwood and Ramjaun 2020). Choice overload also leads to negative consequences like suffering from post-choice decision regret or deferring the choice indefinitely (Noguchi and Hills 2016; Pilli and Mazzon 2016). Overchoice has been a mainstay in academic literature for quite some time. While the consequences have been documented and theorized, research focusing on conceptualising the mitigation of choice overload is quite scarce. At present, only few authors like Malone and Lusk (2018) have dealt with mitigation of choice overload. There have been renewed calls to investigate the psychological processes involved in picking from large assortments (Benoit and Miller 2017). Since the problem of choice overload is a cognitive aspect, a psychological investigation into the mindset of a consumer can help in alleviating the problem. Therefore, this paper proposes to use growth mindset (the belief that human traits are malleable) as a mechanism to combat choice overload and develop a novel model towards mitigating this problem.

The conceptualization of said model is preceded by a literature review of choice overload, growth mindset and existing research gaps. With regards to novel theoretical development, there are a number of ways this can be achieved. First of all, new theories can be synthesised based on context like the agency and reactance theory of crowding (Lim, 2021). Another way is theoretical integration like the integrated information systems-consumer behaviour model for e-shopping (Lim, 2015). Novel theories emerging from systematic reviews are another possibility as demonstrated by Lim and Weissmann (2021) in their development of the theory of behavioural control. Altogether, this paper has chosen to follow a hybrid route towards novel theoretical development. Theoretical integration (of choice overload and growth mindset) was achieved after a systematic review of maiden evidence to support the core tenets of the new theory. Subsequently, research propositions have been made so that future studies can validate the proposed model. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of authenticating the novel model of overchoice mitigation. Analysing on-going debates, identifying gaps in literature and synthesising new relationships have been the primary focus of this conceptual study. Altogether, these components are essential in the formation of any theoretical/conceptual articles as narrated by Yadav (2014) and Jakkola (2020). Altogether, the sections below will present a comprehensive overview of the literature before proposing a novel model to mitigate choice overload.