174 Understanding Rational Decision Making
Attribute-Based Organization for Decision Making
When the audience’s task is to make a decision, as opposed to follow instructions or comprehend
a story, the best organization for a document, presentation, or meeting is one that promotes
attribute-based processing and addresses each decision criterion in the audience’s decision schema
one by one. For an example, see “An MBA Team’s Strategic Plan Slides” on pp. 55–57.
Information that is organized to promote attribute-based processing makes the audience’s task of
comparing different alternatives cognitively easier 290 and less prone to error.^291 It also helps consum-
ers make diffi cult trade-offs among alternative products.^292 When product information is displayed to
facilitate attribute-based, processing consumers tend to choose on the basis of product quality. When
the same information is displayed to facilitate alternative-based processing, consumers’ choices tend to
be driven by price.^293 Ultimately, information that is organized to promote attribute-based processing
helps audiences make more accurate decisions more effi ciently.^294
When audience members are allowed to choose an information-acquisition strategy, the better
decision makers among them tend to acquire and process information by attribute.^295 For exam-
ple, better performing fi nancial analysts generally engage in more “between-stock” attribute-based
search when choosing stocks. They select one attribute, such as earnings per share, and check its value
for all stocks they are considering before moving on to check the values of all those stocks for the
next attribute, such as long-term debt. Poorer performing analysts engage in more “within-stock”
alternative-based search. They fi rst select one stock and check its value on all attributes of interest,
such as earnings per share, long-term debt, 52-week high, etc. Then they form an overall, holistic
judgment of that particular stock before moving on to do the same for the other stocks.^296