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Attention please!

Author

Listed:
  • Gossner, Olivier
  • Steiner, Jakub
  • Stewart, Colin

Abstract

We study the impact of manipulating the attention of a decision-maker who learns sequentially about a number of items before making a choice. Under natural assumptions on the decision-maker’s strategy, directing attention toward one item increases its likelihood of being chosen regardless of its value. This result applies when the decisionmaker can reject all items in favor of an outside option with known value; if no outside option is available, the direction of the effect of manipulation depends on the value of the item. A similar result applies to manipulation of choices in bandit problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Gossner, Olivier & Steiner, Jakub & Stewart, Colin, 2021. "Attention please!," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107907, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:107907
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107907/
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    Other versions of this item:

    • Olivier Gossner & Jakub Steiner & Colin Stewart, 2021. "Attention Please!," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(4), pages 1717-1751, July.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

    1. Perroni, Carlo & Scharf, Kimberley & Talavera, Oleksandr & Vi, Linh, 2021. "Online Salience and Charitable Giving : Evidence from SMS Donations," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1325, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Perroni, Carlo & Scharf, Kimberley & Talavera, Oleksandr & Vi, Linh, 2022. "Does online salience predict charitable giving? Evidence from SMS text donations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 134-149.
    3. Annie Liang & Xiaosheng Mu & Vasilis Syrgkanis, 2019. "Dynamically Aggregating Diverse Information," Papers 1910.07015, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    4. Stephanie M. Smith & Ian Krajbich & Ryan Webb, 2019. "Estimating the dynamic role of attention via random utility," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(1), pages 97-111, August.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    sequential sampling; marketing; persuasion; attention; 770652;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

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