The Limits of Attraction
Frederick, Lee and Baskin ask where the attraction effect actually works rather than demonstrating it again. Consumer research has documented dozens of cases in which adding an irrelevant third option shifts preferences between the remaining two, almost always towards the option the new one most resembles. The authors contend that the phenomenon may be restricted to stylised product representations in which every dimension is expressed as a number, such as a toaster oven with a durability rating of 7.2 and an ease-of-cleaning rating of 5.5. Such effects do not typically occur when consumers experience the product, by tasting a drink for instance, or when even one attribute is represented perceptually, such as differently priced hotel rooms whose quality is conveyed by a photograph. Their explanation is that perceptual representations do not support the comparisons the effect depends on, and they question the practical significance of the effect. This publication treats the decoy as live on tables of numbers and thin on shelves.
Frederick, Lee and Baskin ask where the attraction effect actually works rather than demonstrating it again. Consumer research has documented dozens of cases in which adding an irrelevant third option shifts preferences between the remaining two, almost always towards the option the new one most resembles. The authors contend that the phenomenon may be restricted to stylised product representations in which every dimension is expressed as a number, such as a toaster oven with a durability rating of 7.2 and an ease-of-cleaning rating of 5.5. Such effects do not typically occur when consumers experience the product, by tasting a drink for instance, or when even one attribute is represented perceptually, such as differently priced hotel rooms whose quality is conveyed by a photograph. Their explanation is that perceptual representations do not support the comparisons the effect depends on, and they question the practical significance of the effect. This publication treats the decoy as live on tables of numbers and thin on shelves.
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Frederick, S., Lee, L., & Baskin, E. (2014). 'The limits of attraction.' Journal of Marketing Research, 51(4), 487-507. The authors contend the attraction effect may be restricted to stylised product representations in which every dimension is a number, note that such effects do not typically occur when consumers experience the product or when even one attribute is represented perceptually, and question the practical significance of the effect. doi:10.1509/jmr.12.0061
Where we use it
- The Option You Were Never Meant to Buy, Why We Act
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The source
https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.12.0061
DOI: 10.1509/jmr.12.0061