IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/isu/genstf/201001010800001507.html

Cognitive dissonance as a means of reducing hypothetical bias

Author

Listed:
  • Alfnes, Frode
  • Yue, Chengyan
  • Jensen, Helen H.

Abstract

Hypothetical bias is a persistent problem in stated preference studies. We propose and test a method for reducing hypothetical bias based on the cognitive dissonance literature in social psychology. A central element of this literature is that people prefer not to take inconsistent stands and will change their attitudes and behaviour to make them consistent. We find that participants in a stated preference willingness-to-pay study, when told that a nonhypothetical study of similar goods would follow, state significantly lower willingness to pay (WTP) than participants not so informed. In other words, participants adjust their stated WTP to avoid cognitive dissonance, that is, taking inconsistent stands on their WTP for the good being offered.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfnes, Frode & Yue, Chengyan & Jensen, Helen H., 2010. "Cognitive dissonance as a means of reducing hypothetical bias," ISU General Staff Papers 201001010800001507, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:isu:genstf:201001010800001507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/6904f23b-1a02-4de0-8476-298efd40593c/content
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects

    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:isu:genstf:201001010800001507. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Curtis Balmer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deiasus.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.