Coping with Unfavorable Attribute Values in Choice

This paper examines how decision makers cope when faced with trade-offs between a higher quality alternative and a lower price alternative in situations where both alternatives involve relatively unfavorable versus relatively favorable values for quality. We hypothesize that choices between alternatives defined by unfavorable quality values will generate negative emotion, resulting in emotion-focused coping behavior. Choosing the higher quality alternative (i.e., maximizing the quality attribute in choice) appears to function as a coping mechanism in these situations. These apparently coping-motivated choice effects are found even after methods are implemented to control for more cognitive factors associated with manipulations of quality-attribute value, such as the possibility that unfavorable attribute values are associated with increased attribute ranges and therefore increased relative importance for quality. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.