What should we expect from a dual-process theory of preference construction in choice?

Dhar and Gorlin (2013) proposed a dual-process framework for understanding the effects of preference construction in choice. Drawing on the distinction operating principles and operating conditions, it is argued that their emphasis on cognitive elaboration fails to specify the mental operations involved in preference construction. This limitation makes their dual-process framework circular and susceptible to the criticism of single-process alternatives. The distinction between associative and propositional processes has the potential to fill this conceptual gap, thereby providing a more thorough understanding of preference construction effects in choice.     

Choice theories: What are they good for?

Simonson et al. present an ambitious sketch of an integrative theory of context. Provoked by this thoughtful proposal, I discuss what is the function of theories of choice in the coming decades. Traditionally, choice models and theory have attempted to predict choices as a function of the attributes of options. I argue that to be truly useful, they need to generate specific and quantitative predictions of the effect of the choice environment upon choice probability. To do this, we need to focus on rigorously modeling and measuring the underlying processes causing these effects, and use the Simonson et al. proposal to provide some examples. I also present some examples from research in decision-making and decision neuroscience, and argue that models that fail, and fail spectacularly are particularly useful. I close with a challenge: How would consumer researcher aid the design of real world choice environments such as the health exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?     

Reinforcer identification and evaluation of choice within an educational setting

Current research on preference methodology and the effects of choice with children who are typically developing is limited. This study evaluated two preference methodologies for identifying reinforcers across two choice options within the classroom. These methods include a teacher-generated list of reinforcers, a student-generated list of reinforcers, student choice from both lists, and teacher choice from both lists. Four elementary aged-children with no diagnosed learning or developmental disabilities participated. Both preference methods were effective in identifying reinforcers for all participants. Moreover, both choice options resulted in increases in responding. Results are discussed with respect to reinforcement and the effects of “choice.”     

Negative-based prominence: the role of negative features in matching and choice

Previous research related to the prominence effect (e.g., Tversky, Sattath, & Slovic, 1988) has mainly focused on the causes and boundary conditions of the effect. This article investigates the determinants of prominence and explores a negative-based prominence effect in which the negative attribute becomes the prominent one. Using a matching-choice procedure, Experiments 1 and 2 show that the negative dimension became the prominent one under two different cover stories, suggesting that the negative feature looms larger in choice than in matching. The robustness of negative-based prominence was further demonstrated in a direct choice task without matching (Experiment 3) and was shown to be resistant to the impact of added positive features (Experiment 4). Finally, Experiments 5 and 6 distinguish between two determinants of prominence: intrinsic prominence caused by attribute importance and negative-based prominence caused by negative attribute values. By lowering the values on the positive dimension and enhancing the values on the negative dimension, one can reverse the prominence effect. The results suggest that, compared to a matching task, choice leads to enhanced sensitivity to negative features. The relations between negative characteristics of an attribute and other factors that determine prominence are discussed in the final section.     

Preference for oddity: uniqueness heuristic or hierarchical choice process?

Traditional economic theories assume decision makers in multialternative choice tasks "assign" a value to each option and then express rational preferences. Here, I report an apparent violation of such rationality in gray jays (Perisoreus canadensis). I tested the jays' preference in a quaternary choice task where three options were the same color and the fourth option was a different color. All options offered an identical food reward and so the strictly rational expectation was that subjects would choose the odd-colored option in 25% of choices. In clear disagreement, every subject chose the odd option more frequently than expected. I speculate as to how this surprising preference for oddity might have been ecologically rational: by using a unique-choice heuristic, the jays might have been able to bypass a deliberative phase of the decision process and devote more attention to scanning for predators. Alternatively, it is conceivable that the jays did not prefer oddity per se. Instead, they might have used a hierarchical process, assigning options to color categories and then choosing between categories. If so, their behavior matches expectation after all (on average, subjects chose the odd option 50% of the time). It should be straightforward to test these competing hypotheses. The current results can be viewed as a new example of how simple mechanisms sometimes produce economically puzzling yet ecologically rational decision making.     

Context effects in auditory implicit memory

The context effect in implicit memory is the finding that presentation of words in meaningful context reduces or eliminates repetition priming compared to words presented in isolation. Virtually all of the research on the context effect has been conducted in the visual modality but preliminary results raise the question of whether context effects are less likely in auditory priming. Context effects in the auditory modality were systematically examined in five experiments using the auditory implicit tests of word-fragment and word-stem completion. The first three experiments revealed the classical context effect in auditory priming: Words heard in isolation produced substantial priming, whereas there was little priming for the words heard in meaningful passages. Experiments 4 and 5 revealed that a meaningful context is not required for the context effect to be obtained: Words presented in an unrelated audio stream produced less priming than words presented individually and no more priming than words presented in meaningful passages. Although context effects are often explained in terms of the transfer-appropriate processing (TAP) framework, the present results are better explained by Masson and MacLeod's (2000) reduced-individuation hypothesis.     

Is choice a reliable predictor of choice? A comment on Sagarin and Skowronski

In a recent working paper, Chen (2008) argues that a methodology central to the cognitive dissonance literature (the free-choice paradigm) has suffered from an inability to separately measure how much choices affect people’s preferences, and how much they simply reflect those preferences, by failing to fully control for the fact that subjects tend to choose goods they prefer. Although Sagarin and Skowronski concede this, they discount Chen’s argument, claiming that for revealed preferences to completely account for observed choice-effects the relationship between choice and preference would have to be unrealistically high. In this comment, we argue that their critique both misses the crux of Chen’s analysis, and is incorrect. Specifically, to properly test whether choices affect preferences, it is essential that researchers experimentally control for revealed preferences rather than speculate how much of a role they may play. Moreover, Sagarin and Skowronski’s critique rests on two fundamental errors—a misunderstanding of the function of the null-hypothesis and a misunderstanding of preference-measurement psychometrics. These errors leads Sagarin and Skowronski to suggest alternative experimental designs which while a good first step, do not address the problems identified in Chen (2008).     

Neophilia in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and its implication for studies of dog cognition

This study examined novel-object preference in dogs. In a free choice test 17 dogs were presented with a novel toy in a line up with two familiar toys. The unfamiliar object was chosen first in 38 out 50 tests suggesting a strong preference for novel over familiar items. Neophilia may be an adaptive trait for domestic dogs that has helped their adaptation towards man.     

Some probabilistic models of best, worst, and best-worst choices

Over the past decade or so, a choice design in which a person is asked to select both the best and the worst option in an available set of options has been gaining favor over more traditional designs, such as where the person is asked, for instance, to: select the best option; select the worst option; rank the options; or rate the options. In this paper, we develop theoretical results for three overlapping classes of probabilistic models for best, worst, and best-worst choices, with the models in each class proposing specific ways in which such choices might be related. The models in these three classes are called random ranking and random utility, joint and sequential, and ratio scale. We include some models that belong to more than one class, with the best known being the maximum-difference (maxdiff) model, summarize estimation issues related to the models, and formulate a number of open theoretical problems.     

Help or hinder? When recommendation signage expands consideration sets and heightens decision difficulty

This research examines whether recommendation signage helps or hinders the consumer when faced with choosing from large product assortments. In spite of frequent usage and retailer intuition suggesting that providing recommendation signs (e.g., “Best Seller,” “Award Winner”) should help consumers in the choice process, we propose that signs can hinder choice for consumers with more developed preferences by adding to the complexity and difficulty of the decision process. In three experiments using horizontally differentiated products in multiple categories, we provide evidence that recommendation signs create preference conflict for consumers with more developed preferences, leading these consumers to form larger consideration sets and ultimately experience more difficulty from the decision-making process. In addition, we show that these effects are mitigated for consumers with less developed preferences and when the choice is from a small assortment. The results suggest that recommendation signage may not be an effective tool for aiding choice from large assortments; instead signage can exacerbate the difficulties associated with having too many choices, with implications on purchase quantity.     

Repetition priming across distinct contexts: Effects of lexical status,word frequency,and retrieval test

Previous studies have shown an interference of task-irrelevant numerical information with the spatial parameters of visuomotor behaviour. These findings lend support to the notion that number and space share a common metric with respect to action. Here I argue that the demonstration of the structural similarity between scales for number and space would be a more stringent test for the shared metrics than a mere fact of interference. The present study investigated the scale of number mapping onto space in a manual estimation task. The physical size of target stimuli and the magnitudes of task-irrelevant numbers were parametrically manipulated in the context of the Titchener illusion. The results revealed different scaling schemas for number and space. Whereas estimates in response to changes in stimulus physical size showed a gradual increase, the effect of number was categorical with the largest number (9) showing greater manual estimate than the other numbers (1, 3, and 7). Possible interpretations that are not necessarily incompatible with the hypothesis of shared metrics with respect to action are proposed. However, the present findings suggest that a meticulous scale analysis is required in order to determine the nature of number–space interaction.     

Setting the stage subliminally: unconscious context effects

An important approach to understand how the brain gives rise to consciousness is to probe the depth of unconscious processing, thus to define the key features that cause conscious awareness. Here, we investigate the possibility for subliminal stimuli to shape the context for unconscious processing. Context effects have generally been assumed to require consciousness. In the present experiment, unconscious context processing was investigated by looking at the impact of the context on the response activation elicited by a subliminal prime. We compared the effects of the same subliminal prime on target processing when the prime was embedded in different unconscious contexts. Results showed that the same prime can evoke opposite responses depending on the unconscious context in which it is presented. Taken together, the results of this study show that context effects can be unconscious.     

The conflicting choices of alternating selves

Participants made choices after the salience of their social identities was manipulated. Choices assimilated to the salient identity, whether that identity stemmed from a person’s role (e.g., student, family member) or culture (e.g., Chinese, American). Thus, the preferences that participants expressed depended on the identity that happened to be salient at the moment of choice, with participants expressing preferences when one identity was salient that conflicted with the preferences they would express were another identity salient. These effects only arose for those who held and identified with the evoked identity. Studies further revealed that such identity-congruent choices influence post-choice satisfaction and regret: participants were less satisfied with their prior choices when the identity salient during post-choice evaluation or consumption was different from the identity salient during choice, compared to when the “choosing” and “consuming” identities were the same. Implications of the findings are discussed.