Decision Difficulty

What it measures

This scale measures how overwhelmed, frustrated, and annoyed a person felt while making a decision, and how difficult they found the choice. Reiff, Dai, Beshears, Milkman, and Benartzi (2023) used it in a large-scale study on urgency and precommitment savings decisions.

Response format

7-point scale (not at all to very much)

Scale items

• To what extent were you overwhelmed when you were making your _____ decision?
• To what extent were you frustrated when you were making your _____ decision?
• To what extent were you annoyed when you were making your _____ decision?
• To what extent did you find the choice difficult when you were making your _____ decision?

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Reliability was strong (α = .85; Reiff et al. 2023, p. 1107). An exploratory factor analysis with a related two-item urgency measure supported the scale's unidimensionality and discriminant validity. The authors borrowed key phrases from an earlier decision-difficulty measure used in recommendation-signage research rather than reusing its items directly. The blank should be filled with a phrase describing the focal type of decision (e.g., college enrollment, car purchase).

Citation

Reiff, Joseph, Hengchen Dai, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, and Shlomo Benartzi (2023), "Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency in Precommitment Design," Journal of Marketing Research, 60 (6), 1095-1113.

Keywords

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• Domain-Specific Decision Confidence2018 · 4 items
• Domain-Specific Decision Avoidance2018 · 3 items
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• Dehumanization of the Employee2023 · 4 items
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