Less Information is Better?

Frequently the conclusions of an empirical study are quoted in texts and journal articles with little or no qualifications. Hence, it is important that the conclusions drawn from a study, particularly those included in the abstract, not be ambiguous or misleading. Jacoby, Speller, and Kohn [2] make a definite contribution in focusing attention on the consumer's limited ability to process product information. However, their conclusion "while consumers do feel more satisfied and less confused with more information, they actually do make poorer decisions" is not an accurate representation of the results of their study. Furthermore, their procedures for constructing their experimental treatments and their method of evaluating the quality of the subjects' decisions are open to question.