Decision-making can be difficult and often results in necessary trade-offs, e.g., safety versus price in the purchasing of an automobile. This work provides a model of trade-off difficulty, focusing on its antecedents and consequences. The authors advance a new framework for the integration of the emotional and cognitive aspects of decision-making and argue that consumers perceive and appraise their choices in light of their goals and potential coping strategies.

Mary Frances Luce is associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. James R. Bettman and John W. Payne are both on the faculty of the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University; the former is the Burlington Industries Professor of Marketing and the latter is the Joseph J. Ruvane Jr. Professor of Management, professor of psychology, and research professor of statistics and decision sciences.