Attribute Conflict in Consumer Decision Making: The Role of Task Compatibility

Nagpal, Anish; Krishnamurthy, Parthasarathy

doi:10.1086/521903

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Indeed, semantic congruity effects have been observed not only in magnitude comparisons involving objects, but also in judgments of preferential choice. For example, Birnbaum and Jou (1990) found that judging which individual is ''liked more'' for generally likeable individuals took less time than judging between unlikeable individuals, whereas judging which individual is ''liked less'' for likeable individuals took more time than judging between unlikeable individuals (also Nagpal & Krishnamurthy, 2008). The mechanisms instantiated in the BARTlet model may well prove applicable to decision making in areas such as consumer choice and social judgment.…”

Section: Reference Points In Magnitude Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Chen

Holyoak

2014

Cognitive Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tHumans and other primates are able to make relative magnitude comparisons, both with perceptual stimuli and with symbolic inputs that convey magnitude information. Although numerous models of magnitude comparison have been proposed, the basic question of how symbolic magnitudes (e.g., size or intelligence of animals) are derived and represented in memory has received little attention. We argue that symbolic magnitudes often will not correspond directly to elementary features of individual concepts. Rather, magnitudes may be formed in working memory based on computations over more basic features stored in long-term memory. We present a model of how magnitudes can be acquired and compared based on BARTlet, a representationally simpler version of Bayesian Analogy with Relational Transformations (BART; Lu, Chen, & Holyoak, 2012). BARTlet operates on distributions of magnitude variables created by applying dimension-specific weights (learned with the aid of empirical priors derived from pre-categorical comparisons) to more primitive features of objects. The resulting magnitude distributions, formed and maintained in working memory, are sensitive to contextual influences such as the range of stimuli and polarity of the question. By incorporating psychological reference points that control the precision of magnitudes in working memory and applying the tools of signal detection theory, BARTlet is able to account for a wide range of empirical phenomena involving magnitude comparisons, including the symbolic distance effect and the semantic congruity effect. We discuss the role of reference points in cognitive and social decision-making, and implications for the evolution of relational representations.

show abstract

Section: Reference Points In Magnitude Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Chen

Holyoak

2014

Cognitive Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although previous studies (e.g., Houston, Sherman, & Baker, 1991) have shown that a difficult decision is a function of the alternative valence (e.g., unique good features versus unique bad features between two options), Nagpal and Krishnamurthy (2008) indicate that decision conflict is a function not only of the alternative valence but also the interaction between the alternative valence and task formats. Because a choosing task requires an attractiveness judgment, it may be compatible with making a decision between attractive options (e.g., with unique good features) but is incompatible with unattractive options (e.g., with unique bad features).…”

Section: Task Compatibilitymentioning

confidence: 74%

Task formats and ambiguity aversion

Liu

2011

Behavioral Decision Making

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper proposes that task format (choosing or rejecting) moderates the effect of ambiguity aversion. Specifically, an ambiguous option is more attractive in a choosing task than in a rejecting task compared with a risky option. The author performed three experiments to test the propositions. In the first experiment, participants showed less ambiguity aversion when they had to choose a preferred option (risky or ambiguous) compared with when they had to reject an option they preferred less. In the second experiment with a monetary incentive, participants had to form a cash-equivalent estimate for both a risky gamble and an ambiguous gamble in a traditional Ellsberg scenario. The ambiguous option emerged as more attractive than the risky option in the choosing task compared with the rejecting task. The third experiment showed that the participants' decision rationale mediated the effect of the task format on choice. These three experiments support the proposition that task formats moderate the effect of ambiguity aversion. On the basis of the findings, the author provides suggestions for practice and further research.

show abstract

“…alternatives both unattractive) are more difficult than decisions involving approachapproach conflict (i.e alternatives both attractive). Nagpal and Krishnamurthy (2008) showed that this effect is related to the task of choosing and that, symmetrically, unattractive pairs make a rejecting task easier. Using a comparison task, we also observe an effect of the attractivity of the alternatives on the decision difficulty: restricting to pairs of same overall value, incomparability is significantly more frequent when overall value of the options decreased (F(2,30) = 3.6, p = 0.04).…”

Section: Asmentioning

confidence: 98%

When conflict induces the expression of incomplete preferences

Deparis

Mousseau

Öztürk

et al. 2012

European Journal of Operational Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tMulticriteria conflict arises in pairwise comparisons, where each alternative outperforms the other one on some criterion, which imposes a trade-off. Comparing two alternatives can be difficult if their respective advantages are of high magnitude (the attribute spread is large). In this paper, we investigate to which extent conflict in a comparison situation can lead decision makers to express incomplete preferences, that is, to refuse to compare the two alternatives, or to be unable to compare them with confidence. We report on an experiment in which subjects expressed preferences on pairs of alternatives involving varying conflicts. Results show that depending on whether the participants are allowed to express incomplete preferences or not, attribute spread has a different effect: a large attribute spread increases the frequency of incomparability statements, when available, while it increases the use of indifference statements when only indifference and preference answers are permitted. These results lead us to derive some implications for preference elicitation methods involving comparison tasks.

show abstract

Attribute Conflict in Consumer Decision Making: The Role of Task Compatibility

Cited by 28 publications

References 32 publications

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Task formats and ambiguity aversion

When conflict induces the expression of incomplete preferences

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About