IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0240937.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Attraction to similar options: The Gestalt law of proximity is related to the attraction effect

Author

Listed:
  • Liz Izakson
  • Yoav Zeevi
  • Dino J Levy

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested that there are common mechanisms between perceptual and value-based processes. For instance, both perceptual and value-based choices are highly influenced by the context in which the choices are made. However, the mechanisms which allow context to influence our choice process as well as the extent of the similarity between the perceptual and preferential processes are still unclear. In this study, we examine a within-subject relation between the attraction effect, which is a well-known effect of context on preferential choice, and the Gestalt law of proximity. Then, we aim to use this link to better understand the mechanisms underlying the attraction effect. We conducted one study followed by an additional pre-registered replication study, where subjects performed a Gestalt-psychophysical task and a decoy task. Comparing the behavioral sensitivity of each subject in both tasks, we found that the more susceptible a subject is to the proximity law, the more she displayed the attraction effect. These results demonstrate a within-subject relation between a perceptual phenomenon (proximity law) and a value-based bias (attraction effect) which further strengthens the notion of common rules between perceptual and value-based processing. Moreover, this suggests that the mechanism underlying the attraction effect is related to grouping by proximity with attention as a mediator.

Suggested Citation

  • Liz Izakson & Yoav Zeevi & Dino J Levy, 2020. "Attraction to similar options: The Gestalt law of proximity is related to the attraction effect," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-21, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0240937
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240937
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240937
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240937&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0240937?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mel Win Khaw & Ziang Li & Michael Woodford, 2017. "Risk Aversion as a Perceptual Bias," NBER Working Papers 23294, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Simonson, Itamar, 1989. "Choice Based on Reasons: The Case of Attraction and Compromise Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(2), pages 158-174, September.
    3. Castillo, Geoffrey, 2020. "The attraction effect and its explanations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 123-147.
    4. Sebastian Gluth & Nadja Kern & Maria Kortmann & Cécile L. Vitali, 2020. "Value-based attention but not divisive normalization influences decisions with multiple alternatives," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(6), pages 634-645, June.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Michael Woodford, 2012. "Prospect Theory as Efficient Perceptual Distortion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 41-46, May.
    7. Mohr, Peter N. C. & Heekeren, Hauke R. & Rieskamp, Jörg, 2017. "Attraction Effect in Risky Choice Can Be Explained by Subjective Distance Between Choice Alternatives," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 7, pages 1-10.
    8. Bandyopadhyay, Taradas & Dasgupta, Indraneel & Pattanaik, Prasanta K., 1999. "Stochastic Revealed Preference and the Theory of Demand," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 95-110, January.
    9. Huber, Joel & Payne, John W & Puto, Christopher, 1982. "Adding Asymmetrically Dominated Alternatives: Violations of Regularity and the Similarity Hypothesis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(1), pages 90-98, June.
    10. Kahneman, Daniel, 2002. "Maps of Bounded Rationality," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2002-4, Nobel Prize Committee.
    11. Wedell, Douglas H. & Pettibone, Jonathan C., 1996. "Using Judgments to Understand Decoy Effects in Choice," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 326-344, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ryan Webb & Paul W. Glimcher & Kenway Louie, 2021. "The Normalization of Consumer Valuations: Context-Dependent Preferences from Neurobiological Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 93-125, January.
    2. Castillo, Geoffrey, 2020. "The attraction effect and its explanations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 123-147.
    3. Guevara, C. Angelo & Fukushi, Mitsuyoshi, 2016. "Modeling the decoy effect with context-RUM Models: Diagrammatic analysis and empirical evidence from route choice SP and mode choice RP case studies," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 318-337.
    4. Linhai Wu & Pingping Liu & Xiujuan Chen & Wuyang Hu & Xuesen Fan, 2021. "Contents of product attributes and the decoy effect: A study on traceable pork from the perspective of consumer utility," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 974-984, June.
    5. Jonathan C. Pettibone, 2012. "Testing the effect of time pressure on asymmetric dominance and compromise decoys in choice," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(4), pages 513-523, July.
    6. Zhang, Tao & Zhang, David, 2007. "Agent-based simulation of consumer purchase decision-making and the decoy effect," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 912-922, August.
    7. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Salience and Consumer Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(5), pages 803-843.
    8. Ivan Moscati, 2022. "Behavioral and heuristic models are as-if models too — and that’s ok," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22177, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    9. Jiangbo Yu, 2022. "An elementary mechanism for simultaneously modeling discrete decisions and decision times," System Dynamics Review, System Dynamics Society, vol. 38(3), pages 215-245, July.
    10. Seidl, C. & Traub, S., 1996. "Rational Choice and the Relevance of Irrelevant Alternatives," Other publications TiSEM 26452450-9ecd-45b4-bc45-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Alistair Munro & Danail Popov, 2013. "A portmanteau experiment on the relevance of individual decision anomalies for households," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 335-348, September.
    12. Fabio Galeotti & Maria Montero & Anders Poulsen, 2022. "The Attraction and Compromise Effects in Bargaining: Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2987-3007, April.
    13. Li, Feng & Du, Timon C. & Wei, Ying, 2020. "Enhancing supply chain decisions with consumers’ behavioral factors: An illustration of decoy effect," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    14. Ronayne, David & Brown, Gordon D.A., 2016. "Multi-attribute decision by sampling: An account of the attraction, comprimise and similarity effects," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1124, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    15. Slaughter, Jerel E. & Bagger, Jessica & Li, Andrew, 2006. "Context effects on group-based employee selection decisions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 47-59, May.
    16. Cheng, Yin-Hui & Chuang, Shih-Chieh & Pei-I Yu, Annie & Lai, Wan-Ting, 2019. "Change in your wallet, change your choice: The effect of the change-matching heuristic on choice," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 67-76.
    17. Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Uler, Neslihan, 2013. "Understanding the reference effect," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 403-423.
    18. Katharina Dowling & Daniel Guhl & Daniel Klapper & Martin Spann & Lucas Stich & Narine Yegoryan, 2020. "Behavioral biases in marketing," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 449-477, May.
    19. Bechler, Georg & Steinhardt, Claudius & Mackert, Jochen & Klein, Robert, 2021. "Product line optimization in the presence of preferences for compromise alternatives," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(3), pages 902-917.
    20. Nobuo Koida, 2018. "Anticipated stochastic choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(3), pages 545-574, May.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0240937. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.