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Choice Bracketing

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Abstract

When making many choices, a person can broadly bracket them by assessing the consequences of all of them taken together, or narrowly bracket them by making each choice in isolation. We integrate research conducted in a wide range of decision contexts which shows that choice bracketing is an important determinant of behavior. Because broad bracketing allows people to take into account all the consequences of their actions, it generally leads to choices that yield higher utility. The evidence that we review, however, shows that people often fail to bracket broadly when it would be feasible for them to do so. In addition to documenting the diverse effects of bracketing, we also discuss factors that determine whether people bracket narrowly or broadly. We conclude with a discussion of normative aspects of bracketing and argue that there are some situations in which narrower bracketing results in superior decision making.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leeds University Business School, Leeds, UK, LS2 9JT

    Daniel Read

  2. Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

    George Loewenstein

  3. Department of Economics, University of California—, Berkeley

    Matthew Rabin

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  1. Daniel Read
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  2. George Loewenstein
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  3. Matthew Rabin
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Read, D., Loewenstein, G. & Rabin, M. Choice Bracketing. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 19, 171–197 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007879411489

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