Information cost, amount of payoff, and level of aspiration as determinants of information seeking in decision making

Abstract

How does a man select a wife, or a car, or a candy bar? An obvious answer is that his choice depends on his information about the available alternatives. But how does he acquire this information? How does he select and organize it? On what basis does he decide that he has assimilated enough information to make a decision? This paper describes an attempt to determine the parameters of one of these variables—the amount of information acquired before a decision is made.