28th Annual Student Research Conference
Paradox of Choice in the Fast Food Industry
Joanne Chong
Dr. Debra Cartwright, Faculty Mentor
In the recent years, the fast food industry has experienced slow growth, raising concerns about the future of the industry. One of the top fast food chains, McDonalds has attributed their decline in sales to their complex menus (Patton, 2013). They claim that a majority of the revenue earned comes from a small subset of their menu. As a result, McDonalds has been reducing the number of menu items offered. Furthermore, several popular restaurant chains across the nation have followed their footsteps. A psychologist, Barry Schwartz (2004), theorized that giving consumers too many choices increases the time spent on making decisions and have resulted in consumers purchasing less. He labeled this phenomena the paradox of choice. Research on this concept has found mixed results. This paper studies the sales of fast food chains to discover whether the paradox of choice affects the decision making processes.
Keywords: Paradox of Choice, Fast Food, Consumer Behavior
Topic(s):Business Administration
Psychology
Sociology
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 212-1
Location: MG 1090
Time: 11:00