IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/1124.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Multi-attribute decision by sampling: An account of the attraction, comprimise and similarity effects

Author

Listed:
  • Ronayne, David

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

  • Brown, Gordon D.A.

    (Department of Psychology, University of Warwick)

Abstract

Consumers' choices are typically influenced by choice context in ways that standard models cannot explain. We provide a concise explanation of the attraction, compromise and similarity effects. Value is assumed to be determined by simple dominance relations between choice options and sampled comparators, and selection of comparators is assumed to be systematically influenced by the choice options. In one experiment, participants viewed differing selections of market options prior to choice. The classic context effects appeared and disappeared as predicted. In the second experiment, individuals' sampling distributions of market options were influenced by the choice set as predicted by the model.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2016/twerp_1124_ronayne.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Itzhak Gilboa & David Schmeidler, 1995. "Case-Based Decision Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 605-639.
    3. Pettibone, Jonathan C. & Wedell, Douglas H., 2000. "Examining Models of Nondominated Decoy Effects across Judgment and Choice," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 300-328, March.
    4. Bachi, Benjamin & Spiegler, Ran, 2018. "Buridanic competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 298-315.
    5. John Horton & David Rand & Richard Zeckhauser, 2011. "The online laboratory: conducting experiments in a real labor market," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(3), pages 399-425, September.
    6. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2014. "Stochastic Choice and Consideration Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(3), pages 1153-1176, May.
    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. Aaron M. Bornstein & Mel W. Khaw & Daphna Shohamy & Nathaniel D. Daw, 2017. "Reminders of past choices bias decisions for reward in humans," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    9. Wernerfelt, Birger, 1995. "A Rational Reconstruction of the Compromise Effect: Using Market Data to Infer Utilities," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(4), pages 627-633, March.
    10. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2012. "Salience Theory of Choice Under Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1243-1285.
    11. Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "What Comes to Mind," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1399-1433.
    12. , & ,, 2012. "Reason-based choice: a bargaining rationale for the attraction and compromise effects," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(1), January.
    13. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2012. "Salience in Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 47-52, May.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:5:p:411-419 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Botond Koszegi & Adam Szeidl, 2013. "A Model of Focusing in Economic Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(1), pages 53-104.
    16. Jakub Steiner & Colin Stewart, 2016. "Perceiving Prospects Properly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1601-1631, July.
    17. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Daisuke Nakajima & Erkut Y. Ozbay, 2012. "Revealed Attention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2183-2205, August.
    18. Hiroki Nishimura & Efe A. Ok & John K.-H. Quah, 2017. "A Comprehensive Approach to Revealed Preference Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1239-1263, April.
    19. Arthur J. Robson, 2001. "Why Would Nature Give Individuals Utility Functions?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 900-929, August.
    20. Paulo Natenzon, 2019. "Random Choice and Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 419-457.
    21. Ran Spiegler, 2006. "The Market for Quacks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 1113-1131.
    22. Efe A. Ok & Pietro Ortoleva & Gil Riella, 2015. "Revealed (P)Reference Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(1), pages 299-321, January.
    23. ,, 2006. "Competition over agents with boundedly rational expectations," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(2), pages 207-231, June.
    24. Prelec, Drazen & Wernerfelt, Birger & Zettelmeyer, Florian, 1997. "The Role of Inference in Context Effects: Inferring What You Want from What Is Available," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(1), pages 118-125, June.
    25. Niedrich, Ronald W & Sharma, Subhash & Wedell, Douglas H, 2001. "Reference Price and Price Perceptions: A Comparison of Alternative Models," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(3), pages 339-354, December.
    26. 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.
    27. Emir Kamenica, 2008. "Contextual Inference in Markets: On the Informational Content of Product Lines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2127-2149, December.
    28. Mauro Papi, 2014. "Noncompensatory consideration and compensatory choice: an application to Stackelberg competition," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(1), pages 53-63, April.
    29. Neil Stewart & Stian Reimers & Adam J. L. Harris, 2015. "On the Origin of Utility, Weighting, and Discounting Functions: How They Get Their Shapes and How to Change Their Shapes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(3), pages 687-705, March.
    30. 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.
    31. Sendhil Mullainathan, 2002. "A Memory-Based Model of Bounded Rationality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 735-774.
    32. Amos Tversky & Itamar Simonson, 1993. "Context-Dependent Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(10), pages 1179-1189, October.
    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. 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.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:6:p:1324-1369 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Sudeep Bhatia & Graham Loomes & Daniel Read, 2021. "Establishing the laws of preferential choice behavior," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(6), pages 1324-1369, November.

    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. Dahremöller, Carsten & Fels, Markus, 2015. "Product lines, product design, and limited attention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 437-456.
    2. Tserenjigmid, Gerelt, 2019. "Choosing with the worst in mind: A reference-dependent model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 631-652.
    3. Guney, Begum & Richter, Michael & Tsur, Matan, 2018. "Aspiration-based choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 935-956.
    4. Castillo, Geoffrey, 2020. "The attraction effect and its explanations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 123-147.
    5. Junnan He, 2021. "Bayesian Contextual Choices under Imperfect Perception of Attributes," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03878378, HAL.
    6. Junnan He, 2021. "Bayesian Contextual Choices under Imperfect Perception of Attributes," Working Papers hal-03878378, HAL.
    7. Landry, Peter & Webb, Ryan, 2021. "Pairwise normalization: A neuroeconomic theory of multi-attribute choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Georgios Gerasimou, 2016. "Partially dominant choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(1), pages 127-145, January.
    11. Hassan Nosratabadi, 2017. "Referential Revealed Preference Theory," Departmental Working Papers 201707, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    12. Nicola Gennaioli & Alberto Martin & Stefano Rossi, 2014. "Sovereign Default, Domestic Banks, and Financial Institutions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 819-866, April.
    13. Maltz, Amnon & Rachmilevitch, Shiran, 2021. "A model of menu-dependent evaluations and comparison-aversion," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    14. Ola Andersson & Jim Ingebretsen Carlson & Erik Wengström, 2021. "Differences Attract: An Experimental Study of Focusing in Economic Choice," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(639), pages 2671-2692.
    15. Barna Bakó & Gábor Neszveda & Linda Dezső, 2018. "When irrelevant alternatives do matter. The effect of focusing on loan decisions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(1), pages 123-141, January.
    16. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Georgios Gerasimou, 2016. "Asymmetric dominance, deferral, and status quo bias in a behavioral model of choice," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 80(2), pages 295-312, February.
    18. Liang Guo, 2016. "Contextual Deliberation and Preference Construction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(10), pages 2977-2993, October.
    19. Pinger, Pia & Ruhmer-Krell, Isabel & Schumacher, Heiner, 2016. "The compromise effect in action: Lessons from a restaurant's menu," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 14-34.
    20. Yukinori Iwata, 2018. "Salience and limited attention," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(1), pages 123-146, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    consumer choice; decision-making; context effects; sampling.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    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:wrk:warwec:1124. 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: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.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.