IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/arerjl/55557.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effects of Trivial Attributes on Choice of Food Products

Author

Listed:
  • Miljkovic, Dragan
  • Gong, Jian
  • Lehrke, Linda

Abstract

Trivial or irrelevant attributes are defined as attributes that do not create a meaningful difference in a brand’s performance. The objective of this paper is to determine if and how trivial attributes affect consumers in their choice of variety/brands of food products including frozen green beans, orange juice, canola oil, and frosted strawberry toaster pastries. Sixty subjects participated in the experiment. Subjects understood that trivial attributes are less important than substantive attributes. Substantive (important) quality attributes and economic variables affecting choice were all perceived equal across brands by the subjects in the experiment. Two critical driving forces in determining the presence and direction of the effect of a trivial attribute on the consumer choice are the size of the choice set and the type of trivial attribute, i.e., product versus promotional attribute.

Suggested Citation

  • Miljkovic, Dragan & Gong, Jian & Lehrke, Linda, 2009. "The Effects of Trivial Attributes on Choice of Food Products," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 38(2), pages 1-11, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:55557
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.55557
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/55557/files/miljkovic%20-%20current.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.55557?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. List, John A & Shogren, Jason F, 1998. "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1350-1355, December.
    2. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    3. Kim, Sung-Yong & Nayga, Rodolfo M. & Capps, Oral, 2001. "Health Knowledge and Consumer Use of Nutritional Labels: The Issue Revisited," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 10-19, April.
    4. Gregory W. Fischer & Ziv Carmon & Dan Ariely & Gal Zauberman, 1999. "Goal-Based Construction of Preferences: Task Goals and the Prominence Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(8), pages 1057-1075, August.
    5. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    6. Hans P. Binswanger, 1980. "Attitudes Toward Risk: Experimental Measurement in Rural India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 62(3), pages 395-407.
    7. Goldstein, William M. & Busemeyer, Jerome R., 1992. "The effect of "irrelevant" variables on decision making: Criterion shifts in preferential choice?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 425-454, August.
    8. Marcus Cunha Jr. & Chris Janiszewski & Juliano Laran, 2008. "Protection of Prior Learning in Complex Consumer Learning Environments," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(6), pages 850-864, October.
    9. Friedman, Daniel, 1998. "Monty Hall's Three Doors: Construction and Deconstruction of a Choice Anomaly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 933-946, September.
    10. Grether, David M & Plott, Charles R, 1979. "Economic Theory of Choice and the Preference Reversal Phenomenon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 623-638, September.
    11. Brown, Christina L & Carpenter, Gregory S, 2000. "Why Is the Trivial Important? A Reasons-Based Account for the Effects of Trivial Attributes on Choice," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 26(4), pages 372-385, March.
    12. Meyvis, Tom & Janiszewski, Chris, 2002. "Consumers' Beliefs about Product Benefits: The Effect of Obviously Irrelevant Product Information," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(4), pages 618-635, March.
    13. Hutchinson, J Wesley & Alba, Joseph W, 1991. "Ignoring Irrelevant Information: Situational Determinants of Consumer Learning," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 18(3), pages 325-345, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. M. Deniz Dalman & Junhong Min, 2014. "Marketing Strategy for Unusual Brand Differentiation : Trivial Attribute Effect," Post-Print hal-04325784, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kuhberger, Anton & Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael & Perner, Josef, 2002. "Framing decisions: Hypothetical and real," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 1162-1175, November.
    2. Emmanouil Mentzakis & Jana Sadeh, 2021. "Experimental evidence on the effect of incentives and domain in risk aversion and discounting tasks," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 203-224, June.
    3. Benjamin Enke & Uri Gneezy & Brian Hall & David Martin & Vadim Nelidov & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2020. "Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8168, CESifo.
    4. Ruth Vargas Hill, 2006. "The role of risk in shaping production decisions: an empirical analysis," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-049, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Benjamin Enke & Uri Gneezy & Brian Hall & David Martin & Vadim Nelidov & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2023. "Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 818-832, July.
    6. Jinkwon Lee, 2007. "Repetition And Financial Incentives In Economics Experiments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 628-681, July.
    7. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    8. Marielle Brunette & Jonas Ngouhouo-Poufoun, 2022. "Are risk preferences consistent across elicitation procedures? A field experiment in Congo basin countries," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 47(1), pages 122-140, March.
    9. Nathalie Etchart-Vincent, 2007. "Expérimentation de laboratoire et économie : contre quelques idées reçues et faux problèmes," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 83(1), pages 91-116.
    10. Heribert Gierl & Tina Großmann, 2008. "Imply-Benefit-Attribute im Bereich häufig gekaufter Konsumgüter," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 355-384, June.
    11. Sarah Jacobson & Ragan Petrie, 2009. "Learning from mistakes: What do inconsistent choices over risk tell us?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 143-158, April.
    12. James C. Cox & Eike B. Kroll & Marcel Lichters & Vjollca Sadiraj & Bodo Vogt, 2019. "The St. Petersburg paradox despite risk-seeking preferences: an experimental study," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 12(1), pages 27-44, April.
    13. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    14. Marielle Brunette & Jonas Ngouhouo-Poufoun, 2019. "Are risk preferences stable ? A field experiment in Congo Basin countries," Working Papers of BETA 2019-18, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    15. Erica Mina Okada, 2010. "Uncertainty, Risk Aversion, and WTA vs. WTP," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 75-84, 01-02.
    16. Villacis, Alexis H., 2023. "Inconsistent choices over prospect theory lottery games: Evidence from field experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    17. Mußhoff, Oliver & Hirschauer, Norbert & Fahlbusch, Markus, 2014. "An Investigation into the Factors which Determine Farmers’ Acceptance of Supply Contracts: The Ethanol Beet Example," Journal of International Agricultural Trade and Development, Journal of International Agricultural Trade and Development, vol. 63(1).
    18. Francesco Bogliacino & Iván González-Gallo, 2015. "Aspirations, Prospect Theory and entrepreneurship: evidence from Colombia," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 62(3), pages 271-290, September.
    19. Pamela Jakiela & Owen Ozier, 2019. "The Impact of Violence on Individual Risk Preferences: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 547-559, July.
    20. Brad R. Taylor, 2016. "Exit and the Epistemic Quality of Voice," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 133-144, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:55557. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nareaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.