A zero attraction effect in naturalistic choice.

Abstract

In the attraction effect, adding a dominated third option to a choice set of two options can alter preferences for the original two options and increase the dominating option's choice share. This can constitute a violation of the axioms of regularity and independence from irrelevant alternatives, which are core properties of any choice model in which the utility of each option is stable across choice sets. In the past 20 years, the attraction effect has driven the development of a set of influential models of multiattribute choice. However, two studies (Frederick et al., 2014; Yang & Lynn, 2014) involving a series of experiments with naturalistic choice options (e.g., snacks, movies) found no evidence for the attraction effect in choice contexts where alternatives are represented without objectively defined (e.g., numerical) attribute dimensions—a finding that would severely undermine its theoretical importance. Huber et al. (2014) criticized these studies, laying down a set of criteria that should be met by any experiment wishing to test for the attraction effect in real-world consumer choices. Based on these criteria, this article presents a carefully designed experiment testing the attraction effect with movies as naturalistic choice options. The results show a precisely zero attraction effect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)