IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/iefi15/206252.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Attribute Non-Attendance and Satisficing Behavior in Online Choice Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Jones, Michael S.
  • House, Lisa A.
  • Gao, Zhifeng

Abstract

While a successful survey requires engaged and attentive respondents, careless survey completion remains a great concern in online market research. In this article, we test metrics of engagement in an online willingness-to-pay (WTP) study for fresh blueberry attributes using a major U.S. panel company and evaluate the impact that poorly behaving respondents have on subsequent data quality. In doing so, we investigate in detail the complex joint relationship between attribute non-attendance (ANA) and measures of respondent engagement in web surveying. Using fixed latent classes, an approach known as the Equality Constrained Latent Class procedure, we export individual probabilistic class assignment of all levels of attribute attendance to cross reference with respondents who fail measures of engagement and fraudulence, and analyze their composition and impact on latent classes, indicating non-attendance of individual and combinations of attributes. We also analyze engagement impacts on the tau variance parameter in the scaled mixed logit model and find strong links to unnecessarily increased heterogeneity when not properly filtering poorly behaving respondents. While WTP estimates between respondents passing and failing engagement metrics are similar with the ECLC model, filtering failing respondents in the scaled mixed logit model reduces overall WTP estimates. Results have implications for both WTP researchers and general online market researchers.

Suggested Citation

  • Jones, Michael S. & House, Lisa A. & Gao, Zhifeng, 2015. "Attribute Non-Attendance and Satisficing Behavior in Online Choice Experiments," 2015 International European Forum (144th EAAE Seminar), February 9-13, 2015, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 206252, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iefi15:206252
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.206252
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/206252/files/34-House_ANA%20Igls%20paper.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.206252?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. Zhifeng Gao & Lisa A. House & Jing Xie, 2016. "Online Survey Data Quality and Its Implication for Willingness-to-Pay: A Cross-Country Comparison," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 64(2), pages 199-221, June.
    2. Mohammed Alemu & Morten Mørkbak & Søren Olsen & Carsten Jensen, 2013. "Attending to the Reasons for Attribute Non-attendance in Choice Experiments," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 54(3), pages 333-359, March.
    3. Varian, Hal R, 1982. "The Nonparametric Approach to Demand Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 945-973, July.
    4. Wolf, Christopher A. & Tonsor, Glynn T. & Olynk, Nicole J., 2011. "Understanding U.S. Consumer Demand for Milk Production Attributes," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 36(2), pages 1-17.
    5. McIntosh, E. & Ryan, M., 2002. "Using discrete choice experiments to derive welfare estimates for the provision of elective surgery: Implications of discontinuous preferences," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 367-382, June.
    6. Jayson L. Lusk, 2003. "Effects of Cheap Talk on Consumer Willingness-to-Pay for Golden Rice," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(4), pages 840-856.
    7. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    8. Hole, Arne Risa, 2011. "A discrete choice model with endogenous attribute attendance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 203-205, March.
    9. Jens Hougaard & Tue Tjur & Lars Østerdal, 2012. "On the meaningfulness of testing preference axioms in stated preference discrete choice experiments," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(4), pages 409-417, August.
    10. Olynk, Nicole J. & Tonsor, Glynn T. & Wolf, Christopher A., 2010. "Consumer Willingness to Pay for Livestock Credence Attribute Claim Verification," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 35(2), pages 1-20, August.
    11. Jones, Michael S. & House, Lisa A. & Gao, Zhifeng, 2014. "Respondent Screening and SARP: Testing Quarantining Methods for Better Data Quality in Web Panel Surveys," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 169653, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Glynn T. Tonsor, 2011. "Consumer inferences of food safety and quality," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 38(2), pages 213-235, June.
    13. Jochen Hartl & Roland Herrmann, 2009. "Do they always say no? German consumers and second‐generation GM foods," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(5), pages 551-560, September.
    14. Arne Risa Hole, 2007. "A comparison of approaches to estimating confidence intervals for willingness to pay measures," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(8), pages 827-840, August.
    15. Abidoye, Babatunde O. & Bulut, Harun & Lawrence, John D. & Mennecke, Brian & Townsend, Anthony M., 2011. "U.S. Consumers' Valuation of Quality Attributes in Beef Products," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 1-12, February.
    16. Jean Kinsey & R. Wes Harrison & Dennis Degeneffe & Gustavo Ferreira & Sakiko Shiratori, 2009. "Index of Consumer Confidence in the Safety of the United States Food System," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1470-1476.
    17. David Hensher & John Rose & William Greene, 2005. "The implications on willingness to pay of respondents ignoring specific attributes," Transportation, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 203-222, May.
    18. Moon, Wanki & Balasubramanian, Siva K. & Rimal, Arbindra, 2011. "Health claims and consumers' behavioral intentions: The case of soy-based food," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 480-489, August.
    19. Hensher, David A. & Rose, John M., 2009. "Simplifying choice through attribute preservation or non-attendance: Implications for willingness to pay," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 583-590, July.
    20. Adrian D. Uzea & Jill E. Hobbs & Jing Zhang, 2011. "Activists and Animal Welfare: Quality Verifications in the Canadian Pork Sector," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 281-304, June.
    21. Tonsor, Glynn T. & Wolf, Christopher A., 2010. "Drivers of Resident Support for Animal Care Oriented Ballot Initiatives," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 419-428, August.
    22. Schaafsma, Marije & Brouwer, Roy & Rose, John, 2012. "Directional heterogeneity in WTP models for environmental valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 21-31.
    23. David Hensher & John Rose & William Greene, 2012. "Inferring attribute non-attendance from stated choice data: implications for willingness to pay estimates and a warning for stated choice experiment design," Transportation, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 235-245, March.
    24. Scarpa, R. & Thiene, M. & Train, K., 2008. "Appendix to Utility in WTP space: a tool to address confounding random scale effects in destination choice to the Alps," American Journal of Agricultural Economics APPENDICES, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1-9, January.
    25. David A. Hensher, 2006. "How do respondents process stated choice experiments? Attribute consideration under varying information load," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(6), pages 861-878.
    26. Hess, Stephane & Hensher, David A., 2010. "Using conditioning on observed choices to retrieve individual-specific attribute processing strategies," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 781-790, July.
    27. William Greene & David Hensher, 2010. "Does scale heterogeneity across individuals matter? An empirical assessment of alternative logit models," Transportation, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 413-428, May.
    28. Balcombe, Kelvin & Chalak, Ali & Fraser, Iain, 2009. "Model selection for the mixed logit with Bayesian estimation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 226-237, March.
    29. Riccardo Scarpa & Mara Thiene & Kenneth Train, 2008. "Utility in Willingness to Pay Space: A Tool to Address Confounding Random Scale Effects in Destination Choice to the Alps," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(4), pages 994-1010.
    30. Riccardo Scarpa & Timothy J. Gilbride & Danny Campbell & David A. Hensher, 2009. "Modelling attribute non-attendance in choice experiments for rural landscape valuation," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 36(2), pages 151-174, June.
    31. James Andreoni & John Miller, 2002. "Giving According to GARP: An Experimental Test of the Consistency of Preferences for Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 737-753, March.
    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. Erpeng Wang & Ning An & Zhifeng Gao & Emmanuel Kiprop & Xianhui Geng, 2020. "Consumer food stockpiling behavior and willingness to pay for food reserves in COVID-19," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 12(4), pages 739-747, August.

    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. Robert J. Johnston & Kevin J. Boyle & Wiktor (Vic) Adamowicz & Jeff Bennett & Roy Brouwer & Trudy Ann Cameron & W. Michael Hanemann & Nick Hanley & Mandy Ryan & Riccardo Scarpa & Roger Tourangeau & Ch, 2017. "Contemporary Guidance for Stated Preference Studies," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 319-405.
    2. Caputo, Vincenzina & Loo, Ellen J. Van & Scarpa, Riccardo & Nayga, Rodolfo M. Jr & Verbeke, Wim, 2014. "“Using Experiments to Address Attribute Non-attendance in Consumer Food Choices”," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 177173, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Gonçalves, Tânia & Lourenço-Gomes, Lina & Pinto, Lígia M. Costa, 2022. "The role of attribute non-attendance on consumer decision-making: Theoretical insights and empirical evidence," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 788-805.
    4. Mohammed H. Alemu & Søren B. Olsen, 2017. "Can a Repeated Opt-Out Reminder remove hypothetical bias in discrete choice experiments? An application to consumer valuation of novel food products," IFRO Working Paper 2017/05, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    5. Gonçalves, Tânia & Lourenço-Gomes, Lina & Pinto, Lígia M. Costa, 2020. "Dealing with ignored attributes through an inferred approach in wine choice experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    6. David Hensher & Andrew Collins & William Greene, 2013. "Accounting for attribute non-attendance and common-metric aggregation in a probabilistic decision process mixed multinomial logit model: a warning on potential confounding," Transportation, Springer, vol. 40(5), pages 1003-1020, September.
    7. Logar, Ivana & Brouwer, Roy & Campbell, Danny, 2020. "Does attribute order influence attribute-information processing in discrete choice experiments?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    8. Dan Pan, 2016. "The Design of Policy Instruments towards Sustainable Livestock Production in China: An Application of the Choice Experiment Method," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-18, July.
    9. Marit E. Kragt, 2013. "Stated and Inferred Attribute Attendance Models: A Comparison with Environmental Choice Experiments," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 719-736, September.
    10. Díaz, Verónica & Montoya, Ricardo & Maldonado, Sebastián, 2023. "Preference estimation under bounded rationality: Identification of attribute non-attendance in stated-choice data using a support vector machines approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(2), pages 797-812.
    11. Weller, Priska & Oehlmann, Malte & Mariel, Petr & Meyerhoff, Jürgen, 2014. "Stated and inferred attribute non-attendance in a design of designs approach," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 43-56.
    12. Chen, Xuqi & Shen, Meng & Gao, Zhifeng, 2017. "Impact of Intra-respondent Variations in Attribute Attendance on Consumer Preference in Food Choice," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258509, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Sandorf, Erlend Dancke & Crastes dit Sourd, Romain & Mahieu, Pierre-Alexandre, 2018. "The effect of attribute-alternative matrix displays on preferences and processing strategies," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 113-132.
    14. Yegoryan, Narine & Guhl, Daniel & Klapper, Daniel, 2018. "Inferring Attribute Non-Attendance Using Eye Tracking in Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 111, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    15. Marco A. Palma & Myriah D. Johnson & David P. Anderson, 2019. "The effects of experience versus description of attributes on willingness‐to‐pay for beefsteaks," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 50(2), pages 129-137, March.
    16. Stephane Hess & David Hensher, 2013. "Making use of respondent reported processing information to understand attribute importance: a latent variable scaling approach," Transportation, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 397-412, February.
    17. Kemper, Nathan & Nayga, Rodolfo M. Jr. & Popp, Jennie & Bazzani, Claudia, 2016. "The Effects of Honesty Oath and Consequentiality in Choice Experiments," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235381, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Sebastian Heidenreich & Verity Watson & Mandy Ryan & Euan Phimister, 2018. "Decision heuristic or preference? Attribute non‐attendance in discrete choice problems," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 157-171, January.
    19. Tienhaara, Annika & Ahtiainen, Heini & Pouta, Eija, 2017. "Operationalization of ecosystem services for choice experiments: the effect of relevance in the valuation of agrienvironmental policies," 2017 International Congress, August 28-September 1, 2017, Parma, Italy 261433, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Hole, Arne Risa & Kolstad, Julie Riise & Gyrd-Hansen, Dorte, 2013. "Inferred vs. stated attribute non-attendance in choice experiments: A study of doctors’ prescription behaviour," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 21-31.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agribusiness;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iefi15:206252. 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/ilbonde.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.