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Date de publication : 19 oct. 2019 22:41:37
Abstract: We run an incentivized choice process experiment along the lines of [Caplin2011] to assess how the Asymmetric Dominance Effect emerges and whether a bias for dominant options is driven by intuitive or reflective decision modes. The Asymmetric Dominance Effect (ADE, [Huber1982a], a.k.a. attraction or decoy effect) is the most prominent example of context effects. According to the ADE, adding a dominated option to a choice set increases the choice share of the newly dominant option at the expense of other options. While widely replicated, the ADE is usually tested in hypothetical or payoff-irrelevant situations and without following the choice process. We run a laboratory experiment where we incentivize choice, vary the difference in utility between options and track which option participants consider best over time. We find that the ADE can be best modeled as a heuristic. It emerges for the most part only in the early stages of the choice process and is a transitory phenomenon, as it disappears when participants are given enough time to ponder their choices. Participants provisionally choose the asymmetrically dominant option to avoid the dominated decoy and then progressively adjust their choice as they becomes more accurate until choice shares come to correspond to price differences only. We expand our analysis by considering differences in individuals’ response modes (intuitive vs. deliberative) and differences in the presentation of options (numerical or graphical). This allows us to ascribe more precisely the role of fast and slow cognitive process in the emergence and disappearance of the attraction effect.
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