Dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, & legal protection of individuals in the process of correcting the misalignment of their anatomical sex, & supporting their transition into society.

 
Does Personal Comfort Justify Our Use Of Categories? Print E-mail
TS-Si Living - Society
TS-Si News Service   
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Categories
TS-Si Society
Dana Point, CA, USA. Christine Jorgensen (30 May 1926 - 3 May 1989) was one of the first people widely known to the public for undergoing a surgical procedure that would become widely known as Sex Reassignment...

Minnetonka, MN, USA. The notion of experience can be problematic to us as individuals. Broadly stated, we participate in events or activities that permit the accumulation of knowledge or skill. At worst, our m...

Washington, DC, USA. Tens of millions of Americans tethered to our coasts may be caught short as the Democratic National Convention opens in Denver a week from now. They’ve likely heard of the Denver Bron...

Providence, RI, USA. There is an increasing perception that working women are treated more fairly in today’s labor market than they were 30 years ago. However, the apparent closing of the wage gap between men ...
Chicago, IL, USA. As human beings, we use categories to organize the details of a complex world. We experience a certain comfort in the convenience and predictability of categories. That seems to work until somone else comes along with their own category for us that we don't like. Well, the other person got it wrong: we don't fit into that category, or do we?
 
Is it possible that comfort alone is a justification for categorization? Out in the real world of daily choices, most of us have stood in a supermarket aisle, overwhelmed with the array of choices. New research suggests those choices are easier if the options are categorized.
 

The Mere Categorization Effect: How the Presence of Categories Increases Choosers’ Perceptions of Assortment Variety and Outcome Satisfaction. Cassie Mogilner, Tamar Rudnick, and Sheena S. Iyengar. Journal of Consumer Research. August 2008. Vol. 35. doi: 10.1086 / 588698. ISSN: 0093-5301/2008/3502-0002.

 
The findings appear in the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR). The authors demonstrate an interesting phenomenon called the “mere categorization effect,” where consumers are happier with their choices if their options are categorized, even if the categories are meaningless.
 
Authors Cassie Mogilner (Stanford University), Tamar Rudnick, and Sheena S. Iyengar (both from Columbia University) say that “People confronted with highly categorized large selections are happier with their decisions because they experience a sense of self-determination as a result of perceiving differences among the available options.”
  • In one study, participants chose magazines from different displays, some that were categorized and some that were not. Those who were asked to choose a magazine they weren’t familiar with tended to be more satisfied with their choices if they came from categorized selections.
     
  • In another study, people at a food court were randomly selected to choose coffee from several menus. The coffee options were either categorized or uncategorized. “Consumers who chose a coffee flavor from a menu divided into seemingly meaningless categories such as Categories A, B, and C were just as happy as those who chose from meaningful categories such as ‘Mild,’ ‘Dark Roast,’ and ‘Nutty.’”

    When participants were already quite familiar with the items they were selecting, they didn’t need to rely on categories to pick what they wanted, and were less susceptible to the mere categorization effect, the authors found.
“Although it is assumed the size of a selection is more important to the consumer than the number of categories, the findings of this investigation reveal the opposite to be true,” write the authors.
 
“Categorization can benefit retailers by providing them with an alternative to stocking additional volumes of goods. Categorization can also alleviate marketers’ and consumers’ desire for ever-increasing choices by enabling consumers to discover variety, experience self-determination, and obtain satisfaction simply by highlighting the variety already available.”
 


The US National Science Foundation (NSF) and Time Distribution Services contributed funds and resources for the studies in this investigation.

Afiliations. Cassie Mogilner: marketing PhD candidate at Stanford University, Graduate School of Business; Tamar Rudnick: research assistant at Columbia University, Graduate School of Business; Sheena Iyengar: professor of management, Columbia University, Graduate School of Business.


 


The Mere Categorization Effect: How the Presence of Categories Increases Choosers’ Perceptions of Assortment Variety and Outcome Satisfaction. Cassie Mogilner, Tamar Rudnick, and Sheena S. Iyengar. Journal of Consumer Research. August 2008. Vol. 35. doi: 10.1086 / 588698. ISSN: 0093-5301/2008/3502-0002.

Abstract

What is the effect of option categorization on choosers' satisfaction? A combination of field and laboratory experiments reveals that the mere presence of categories, irrespective of their content, positively influences the satisfaction of choosers who are unfamiliar with the choice domain. This “mere categorization effect” is driven by a greater number of categories signaling greater variety among the available options, which allows for a sense of self-determination from choosing. This effect, however, is attenuated for choosers who are familiar with the choice domain, who do not rely on the presence of categories to perceive the variety available.

 
TS-Si News Service
The TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates.
 
We welcome your comments. Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
 
Comments (0)Add Comment

Write comment
quote
bold
italicize
underline
strike
url
image
quote
quote
smile
wink
laugh
grin
angry
sad
shocked
cool
tongue
kiss
cry
smaller | bigger

security code
Write the displayed characters


busy
Last Updated ( Sunday, 20 July 2008 )
 
< Prev   Next >

So They Say

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
 

Anais Nin

Subscribe To The TS-Si Insider

E-Mail Address:
First Name:
Last Name:
Subscriber Action:

Finding Our Way

 
Venereal Disease. DA 1950's look ar what is going on, um, down there.
 
Video Time 00:01:21

DSM V & Beyond

DSM-V: Annotated List Of TS-Si.org Articles. Our continuing update of articles on the coming DSM revisions.
TS-Si Comments 

Search TS-Si.org

 
TS-Si Advanced Search

Countdown

US Election: 65 days 19 hrs 48 min