Open Access Library Journal 2019, Volume 6, e5476 ISSN Online: 2333-9721 ISSN Print: 2333-9705 DOI: 10.4236/oalib.1105476 Jun. 5, 2019 1 Open Access Library Journal Incomplete Information Choice on Incumbents, Cognitive Ability and Personality Sergio Da Silva 1* , Raul Matsushita 2 , Mauricio Ramos 1 1 Department of Economics, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil 2 Department of Statistics, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil Abstract In choices under incomplete information on incumbents, consumers with stronger preferences are more likely to reinforce their prior choices with mo- tivated reasoning. However, in situations where incomplete information is restricted only to the prior choice, consumers with stronger preferences are more likely to abandon, not reinforce, their prior choices due to cognitive dissonance. Here, we consider how cognitive ability and personality traits mediate such interplay between motivated reasoning and cognitive disson- ance. We set an experiment to show that consumers with a stronger System 2 are more likely to engage in motivated reasoning to reinforce the prior choice and thus suffer less cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance can, however, overcome motivated reasoning for those cognitively poor consumers who are more emotional, less humble, less extraverted and less conscientious. Subject Areas Behavioral Economics, Consumer Behavior Keywords Choice under Incomplete Information, Prior Choices, Preference Strength, Cognitive Dissonance, Motivated Reasoning, Cognitive Reflection, HEXACO Personality Model, Behavioral Economics 1. Introduction Consumers often make choices between options with missing information and then come across second choices that have more complete information than that were presented in the prior choice [1]. As a result, they have to decide between the option chosen in the prior choice and the new one with more information. How to cite this paper: Da Silva, S., Matsu- shita, R. and Ramos, M. (2019) Incomplete Information Choice on Incumbents, Cognitive Ability and Personality. Open Access Library Journal, 6: e5476. https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1105476 Received: May 17, 2019 Accepted: June 2, 2019 Published: June 5, 2019 Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and Open Access Library Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access