### abstract ###
people have been shown to delay decision making to wait for missing noninstrumental attribute information - information that would not have altered their decision if known at the outset - with this delay originally attributed to uncertainty obscuring one's true preference  CITATION
to test this account  relative to an alternative that delay arises from low confidence in one's preference  CITATION   we manipulated information certainty and the magnitude of a penalty for delay  the latter intended to reduce the influence of easily resolved sources of delay and to magnify any influence of uncertainty
contrary to expectations  the results were largely inconsistent with the uncertainty account in that  under a low penalty  delay did not depend on information certainty  and  under a high penalty  delay rate was actually much lower when information was uncertain
to explain the latter  we propose that people use a strategy for resolving choice under uncertainty that does not require establishing a confident preference for each value of the missing information
these findings are related to others in which choice difficulty has been found to be a major source of delay
### introduction ###
for pending decisions  how much attribute information should a decision maker gather before eventually committing to a choice alternative
this is a common dilemma in that much relevant information exists in the world  yet some of it will not ultimately affect one's choice
the term information instrumentality refers to whether or not some attribute information could actually alter choice preference  CITATION   a reasonable strategy is to wait only for instrumental information
in contrast to such a strategy  however  the typical decision maker has been shown to delay choice to obtain noninstrumental information
this has been documented by bastardi and shafir  CITATION  across a wide range of decision situations including consumer choice  applicant selection  ultimatum games  and everyday contexts
for example  it was found that  when a hypothetical course was going to be taught by either a very popular instructor or a less popular one  but it was not yet known which instructor would be teaching it  the majority of individuals postponed choice
that the missing information was noninstrumental was illustrated by the fact that  when the less desirable instructor was known from the outset to be teaching the course  and no opportunity to defer was available  individuals overwhelmingly chose to enroll in the course
of interest here is why choice delay occurs in the context of noninstrumental information  and the research we present speaks to this important question
in particular  are individuals actually waiting for the information per se
or are they waiting for other reasons
bastardi and shafir  CITATION  proposed that individuals wait specifically to obtain noninstrumental information  and that the phenomenon emerges because information uncertainty obscures decision makers' true preference
rather than try to resolve their preference  decision makers postpones choice in the hope that any additional information will clarify the situation  we refer to this as an attribute uncertainty account
tykocinski and ruffle  CITATION   in contrast  developed an alternative account  which we refer to here as a confidence account
by this account waiting occurs to gain not information in the face of uncertainty but rather to gain confidence in a non-ideal alternative through deliberation  which can occur even when all information is known
consistent with their account  they found that choice delay occurred even when decision makers knew from the outset that the less desirable attribute of the favored option had already become available  in some cases  rates of deferral in the certain condition were found to be as high as those in the uncertain one
furthermore  they found that  the less confident decision makers were in their initial preference  as well as the longer the stated delay period from a day to a week  the more likely they were to postpone choice
there is currently limited and mixed evidence regarding the influence of information uncertainty as a source of choice delay above and beyond that of low confidence
because only tykocinski and ruffle  CITATION  used a control condition that could discriminate between these accounts  the extent to which attribute uncertainty underlies delay behavior across a range of contexts remains largely unclear
to expand the breadth of contexts in which these sources of delay are explored  and to further evaluate evidence for the attribute uncertainty account relative to the low confidence account  the present research considers delay behavior in situations in which there is some external reason not to postpone choice relative to those in which is little reason not to delay
the introduction of a penalty for delay is an ecologically important one in that such penalties abound in everyday experience e g   hold fees on consumer purchases  charges for running internet searches for information  the risk of a course filling all available seats  and a full account of delay behavior should be able to accommodate data in the context of such penalties
more central to the present work  the context is methodologically interesting in that the desire to avoid delay penalties can motivate people to make more serious attempts at resolving choice difficulties than they might otherwise do
as a result  not only does the introduction of a penalty manipulation have the potential to extend the noninstrumental information effect to a high penalty context  but it also has the potential to dissociate these two sources of delay
in particular  a large penalty might produce greater decreases in confidence-related delay than in attribute uncertainty because confidence-related delay is arguably easier to resolve under pressure because the preference is already known than is delay driven by attribute uncertainty
we conducted two experiments of delay behavior in the context of noninstrumental information  manipulating both the presence of a significant penalty for delay and information certainty
in experiment  NUMBER   a course registration scenario  the penalty manipulation involved risk  participants were informed either that there was a high risk of loss of a course alternative over time or that the risk was minimal
in experiment  NUMBER   a consumer purchase scenario  the penalty manipulation instead involved cost  participants were informed of either a high or a negligible cost to put an item on hold
in both experiments  in an uncertain information condition  the value of the noninstrumental attribute information would not be known until the next day  in a certain information condition  it was known to have the least desirable value
as in tykocinski and ruffle  CITATION   we reasoned that delay in the certain condition is consistent with a confidence source of delay  although any additional delay in an uncertain condition can reasonably be attributed to attribute uncertainty  we expected evidence of both sources for each level of penalty
assuming such evidence of two sources of delay  we further predicted that a penalty manipulation would reveal a dissociation between strategies  namely  a disproportionate decrease in delay in the certain condition  where low confidence is the only source of delay  on the grounds that it is might be easier to resolve choice difficulty when at least a tentative preference has been identified than when none has been selected
