The Effect Of Anxiety On Delayed Choice

As a common and special phenomenon in the field of decision-making,choice deferral has been focused by many scholars.Today,the work mode of “996?007” is increasingly popular,people need to take more stress in work and life.The anxiety caused by this is also becoming more popular in our society.Then,do individuals in different anxiety have significant diversity of choice deferral? In view of this,from two perspectives of decision-making results and process,this research first investigated the effect of anxiety on choice deferral and its mechanism.On this basis,the moderating effect of task framework was further explored.This study consists of three experiments.In experiment 1,the influence of anxiety on choice deferral was investigated based on the outcome analysis approach.Experiment 2 used eye movement to investigate the information processing depth of individuals with high and low anxiety in the decision-making process,aiming to further discuss the reason why anxiety affects choice deferral.In experiment 3,the task framework was introduced to investigate its moderating effect.Main results of this study were as follows:(1)Anxiety has a significant positive effect on choice deferral.Individuals in an anxious state are more inclined to make choice deferral.(2)The depth of information processing(fixation time and fixation count)has a mediating effect between anxiety and choice deferral.In other words,compared with low anxiety,individuals with high anxiety have a longer fixation time and a greater fixation count,and a deeper processing of information,so that they are more likely to make choice deferral.(3)Task framework moderated the relationship between anxiety and choice deferral.That is to say,compared with the control group,individuals in the anxious state were more tended to make choice deferral under a positive framework.In a negative framework,however,both tend to make choice deferral.(4)Task framework moderated the mediating model of how anxiety affects choice deferral through information processing depth(fixation time).In other words,under a positive framework,individuals in the anxious state made more cognitive effort than those in the control group,which makes choice deferral much easier.Under the negative framework,there was no significant difference between the two parts,and both of them tend to make choice deferral.It was manifested by the first stage of the moderated mediating model.Combined with the above experimental results,this study believed that people in anxiety state tend to make choice deferral,and this difference was moderated by task framework.The depth of information processing of decision makers may partly explain this phenomenon.The findings expand the existing literature of choice deferral and task framework.The research also helps people make appropriate decisions,and has guiding sense for marketing methods in advertising,consumption and other fields.