The Effect of the First Cue Outcome on the Use of One-Reason Heuristics
Dong-gook "DK" Kim, Thomas Whalen

Abstract
One-reason heuristics are decision methods relying on only one good piece of information or one cue. In the past empirical studies of these heuristics, many participants used non-one-reason heuristics in spite of experimental conditions that called for the use of one-reason heuristics. In this study, as one of possible conditions under which one-reason heuristics were more likely to be used, we examined how the decision strategies of participants changed by the outcome of the first cue they bought. In our experiment, participants were able to buy cues before choosing one alternative, out of two, as a correct answer, and the first cue bought can be tied, thus not discriminating the alternatives, or not tied. We found that when the first cue bought was tied participants were more likely to use one-reason heuristics; in addition, they showed more frequent use of frugal strategies and there were no late stoppers—those who bought more than one non-tied cue most of the times. These findings extend the understanding of under what conditions one-reason heuristics are more likely to be used.

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