Brief Commentary: A Reexamination of the Effect of Forced Choice on Choice

When conducting studies in which the dependent variable is choice, researchers must decide whether to require participants to select one of the available alternatives or to provide a no-choice option. Prior research by Dhar and Simonson (2003) proposed that no-choice options can disproportionately reduce the share of certain alternatives, particularly all-average or compromise options. In this commentary, I reexamine the propositions and findings of Dhar and Simonson. I report the results of nine well-powered, pre-registered replications of their studies, which support only a subset of the authors’ hypotheses. Importantly, across the replication studies, no-choice options do not systematically draw share from specific alternatives. These findings suggest that no-choice effects may be more nuanced than previously thought and that the conditions under which previously documented effects occur reliably remain unclear. I discuss the implications of these results for theories of decision-making, context effects, and choice deferral. This work aims to update the literature and inform marketing researchers about the consequences of forcing choice versus allowing a no-choice option in experimental designs.