Option Awareness: The Psychology of What We Consider

The standard economic view suggests that people will commit an action if its expected benefits outweigh its costs. But before people weigh the costs and benefits of an action, what affects whether they think of the action in the first place? We argue that actions are more likely to enter into consideration when they are cognitively accessible. We describe three psychological parameters that influence accessibility: automatic assumptions, identity, and perceptions of privacy. These parameters make it possible to identify new interventions for behavior change.