Abstract

                          Although they have some drawbacks, heuristics are effective tools for decision making. This paper focuses on the drivers of heuristic application regarding high involvement and low involvement decisions as well as memory-based and stimulus-based decisions. An online study carried out among 205 participants from 28 countries revealed significant differences for high and low involvement decisions regarding both the trade-off heuristic and the recognition heuristic. Moreover, memory-based and stimulus-based decisions were found not to differ in terms of the type of heuristics involved. We present and discuss several implications of these results for consumer and investment decisions. We include limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. This study intended to shed some light into the role of heuristics in decision making.

Keywords: Decision-Making; Heuristic; Memory-Based; Stimulus-Based; Involvement.