Eric Johnson

Information Overload and the Nonrobustness of Linear Models: A Comment on Keller and Staelin

Coauthor(s): John van Rossen.

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Abstract:
In a recent article, Keller and Staelin (1987) reexamined one of the more controversial questions in consumer research literature: Is it possible to provide consumers with too much information when making choices? The results of this study imply tht consumers are not able to shield themselves from being overloaded when "too much" information is made readily available to the decision maker; too much being related to the quantity and average quality of the available information.

does the Keller and Staelin investigation close the book on the information overload debate? In our view, refinement of the relationship between information quality and quantity is valuable, but a strong argument can be built that their data do not offer an unambiguous demonstration of information overload. Specifically, it is possible to show that a similar set of overload results could have been obtained within their methodology even if consumers had an unlimited ability to process information.

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