More than just the spice of life: Using variety as a signal for change and diversification

Abstract

We consider the role of variety or diversity as a main goal for consumer experiences. We argue that consumers may incorporate variety in their choices of product or experiences for reasons other than merely increasing the consumption utility over time. Specifically, we develop a framework that shows two new roles that variety can play in consumer choice. First, it can serve as a signal to oneself and others that the consumer is able to accept change and be flexible. Second, we show that the meta role of variety, or diversity as a goal in and of itself, is beneficial because more variety in consumers' choice sets (a) provides a more optimal portfolio for future choices under uncertainty, (b) facilitates creative thinking and adoption of innovation, and (c) allows for the consumption of a fuller set of attributes, which satisfies goals of balancing and completeness.

Perceiving greater variety among past conflicts with a focal goal reduces expected goal conflict.

“…Perceiving greater variety necessitates a stronger focus on the distinct features of past events (Etkin, 2016; Evers et al, 2022; Verguts et al, 2004), including their idiosyncratic causes. Because past conflicts with a focal goal unfold over time, we reason that perceiving greater variety highlights how those events and their causes are inconsistent and changing (consistent with prior work linking perceptions of variety to perceptions of change over time; Kahn & Rafieian, 2022; Redden, 2015; Rifkin & Etkin, 2019; Yang & Urminsky, 2015). Thus, by increasing attention to the distinctive features of past conflicts with a focal goal, perceiving greater variety may make the causes of those events seem less stable, overall, indicating their more inconsistent, temporary, and one-off nature.…”

“…Foundational work in this area finds that unpacking a category of possible events (e.g., “death from natural causes”) into more distinct causes (e.g., “death from heart disease, cancer, or some other natural cause”; Tversky & Koehler, 1994) can increase how many possible salient causes are considered and, thus, overall category likelihood estimates (Kruger & Evans, 2004; Savitsky et al, 2005; Tversky & Koehler, 1994). This might suggest that, by “unpacking” an apparently homogeneous category of conflicts into more distinct events (Kahn & Rafieian, 2022; Mogilner et al, 2008), perceived variety could boost the number of salient sources of goal conflict and increase (rather than decrease) expected conflict. Notably, however, recent work has identified circumstances when unpacking causes reduces likelihood estimates (i.e., if distinct causes are low-probability or unpacking increases disfluency; Karmarkar & Kupor, 2023; Redden & Frederick, 2011).…”

“…We propose that the perceived variation or “variety” among past instances of goal conflict plays a role. Perceived variety refers to the holistic assessment of differentiation (vs. similarity) among items in an assortment (Kahn & Rafieian, 2022; Kahn & Wansink, 2004; Redden & Hoch, 2009; Sevilla et al, 2019). Perceived variety depends in part on actual variety (i.e., the extent to which an assortment objectively comprises more or less variety).…”

“…Like similarity, variety characterizes the relationship among multiple items based on the alignment of relevant features (i.e., distinctions and commonalities). However, whereas the similarity literature has largely focused on attribute-level comparisons between pairs of (two) items (Evers et al, 2022; Tversky, 1977), the variety literature emphasizes the overall (i.e., holistic) degree of differentiation among three or more items in an assortment (Kahn & Rafieian, 2022; O’Donnell et al, 2023; Sevilla et al, 2019). For example, two flowers in a bouquet (e.g., a red rose and a pink peony) may seem dissimilar, but all flowers in that bouquet (e.g., roses, peonies, and daises) would seem varied (O’Donnell et al, 2023).…”

Constraints within the consumer behavior context

“…Finally, variety seeking can have social aspects to it; the decision to choose more variety can be based on perceptions of what others will think. People generally think that others will see their choices as better when they include more variety (Kahn & Ratner, 2005). For instance, in a public context, where individuals feel that their choices will be scrutinized, they tend to choose more variety (Ratner & Kahn, 2002).…”