Tradeoffs and Depletion in Choice

Four experiments examined when and why a depletion mechanism causes earlier choices in a sequence to influence subsequent choices between a vice (e.g. lowbrow movie) and a virtue (e.g. highbrow movie). We show that making tradeoffs is at the root of the depletion effects arising from choice. Furthermore, the larger the tradeoffs in a preceding choice, the more pronounced effect that choice has on subsequent choices. The results are consistent with a limited executive resource model where trading off in choices depletes this resource. Lastly, we found that while individuals could intuit some depletion effects, they did not intuit that choices or tradeoffs within choices could be depleting and therefore failed to predict depletion-based interactions between successive choices.