Homo indifferencus: Effects of unavailable options on preference construction

Abstract

People want what they cannot have. Yet would people still covet a forgone option when they have no initial preference for it? We examined this question in two parts by identifying five unique types of choice indifference and testing what choices people make when they have “no preference” for receiving an endowed good that subsequently becomes unavailable. First, we found that feeling indifferent among options is a common response to making decisions; furthermore, we found that previously established effects are significantly altered when accounting for participants' indifference. Second, when people experience the loss of a would-be endowed option, we found that they replace it with a similar option, to such an extent that they choose an option that is inferior to other available options. Together, our results demonstrate that the classic endowment effect does not only emerge after people are endowed but beforehand. That is, when people expect to be endowed with a good, they behave like it is already theirs and replace its loss with a similar good even when (1) they are initially indifferent to it and (2) they could choose something better.