Choice as an End Versus a Means

Abstract

This article investigates the consequence of the choice process for mental resources and the desire to obtain the selected products. The authors draw a distinction between instrumental choice, which serves preexisting consumption goals, and experiential choice, which serves as its own end. Across four studies, they find that instrumental choice undermines mental resources and experiential choice increases these resources. As a result, although experiential choice is made with no consumption goal in mind, compared with instrumental choice, it increases the desire to obtain the selected product. The authors demonstrate these effects on choice among a variety of consumer products (e.g., vacation packages, novels, flower bouquets).