I always find it interesting to read about how human analyse their own thinking process. And today, I came across such an
article by a Northwestern doctoral student.
I find this paragraph particularly enlightening:
"Heuristics are simple mental rules that people use to make decisions, form judgments, and solve problems. According to the zero-sum heuristic, individuals believe that the alternatives in a given choice set are balanced in their overall performance. Hence, consumers draw compensatory inferences and conclude that for each option, advantages in one attribute must be compensated for by disadvantages in another attribute. Therefore, when evaluating choice sets comprising both specialized and all-in-one options, consumers tend to consider the overall performance of the alternatives to be equivalent. This leads them to draw two types of compensatory inferences: compensatory devaluation, which lowers the perceived performance of the all-in-one option, and compensatory polarization, which enhances the perceived performance of the specialized options on their differentiating attributes. "
However, after having experienced the
demise of my 2 years old all-in-one printer , I'm slanted towards the 'masters of one' instead of the 'jacks of all trades'. Can you imagine when your all-in-one becomes a all-except-print printer (a printer that doesn't print?!?!)?
On the hand, I have received feedback from friends about their pleasant experiences with all-in-one printers. Well, sometimes it boils down to luck (and yes, brand). Futhermore, nowadays home printers are usually all-in-one.
Oh and I forgot to mention, the novelty of a post-ORD lifestyle is slowly dying off but nevertheless, it's still great! LG.
