Choice bracketing and experience‐based choice

We examine how choice bracketing affects expected value maximization in experience-based choice. Experience-based choices are a series of individual choices made sequentially, for which feedback follows each choice, and are thus naturally bracketed narrowly. Previous research broadly bracketed multiple experience-based choices for decision makers by aggregating the choices (such that each choice pertained to multiple individual choices) or by reducing feedback frequency. We find that decision makers prompted to actively broad-bracket experience-based choices in the presence of immediate feedback on individual choices (which prompts narrow bracketing) are more likely to choose expected value maximizing options than decision makers prompted to narrow-bracket these choices. This pattern replicated across four studies, using different manipulations of choice bracketing, forms of feedback (partial or full), payoffs (hypothetical or incentive-compatible payoff), subject populations, and when the choices and outcome distribution involved prices or time. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.