Attract the best: The attraction effect as an effective strategy to enhance healthy choices

Every day, people make many food decisions without thinking, repeatedly falling for the unhealthy option instead of the healthy option. While making these mindless decisions, people often rely on heuristics. In this paper, we demonstrate that these heuristics can be exploited to nudge consumers towards healthy alternatives. Specifically, we explore how the attraction effect (i.e., adding a decoy to a choice set) can nudge people to choose a healthy snack. The results of our choice experiment indicate that adding a decoy (i.e., a less attractive food alternative) to a self-control situation (i.e., choosing between a healthy and an unhealthy food alternative) can help people maintain self-control and choose the healthy option. This mixed choice set thus nudges people towards the healthy option. Moreover, our results show differential effects of the attraction effect depending on the (un)healthiness of the products in the choice set. Specifically, the attraction effect is prominent when the choice set consists of unhealthy products only (i.e., the unhealthy choice set), but not in the choice set that consists of only healthy products (i.e., healthy choice set). Importantly, our results indicate when the attraction effect can exploit consumers’ heuristics to help them make better, healthier food choices.

The Attraction and Compromise Effects in Bargaining: Experimental Evidence

We experimentally investigate, in an unstructured bargaining environment with commonly known money payoffs, the attraction effect and compromise effect (AE and CE) in bargaining, namely, a tendency for bargainers to agree to an intermediate option (CE) or to an option that dominates another option (AE). We conjecture that the relevance of the AE and CE in bargaining is constrained by how focal the feasible agreements’ payoffs are. We indeed observe that there are significant AEs and CEs, but these effects are mediated by the efficiency and equality properties of the feasible agreements. Due to the allure of equality, the effects are harder to observe when an equal earnings contract is available. Decoys are more effective in shifting agreements from a very unequal contract to a less unequal one rather than the reverse. This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, behavioral economics and decision analysis.

Efek Pemikatan (Attraction Effect) dan Bias Status Quo Sebuah Eksperimen dalam Perilaku Pengambilan Keputusan Portofolio Keuangan

The reference dependent preference plays a significant role in individual choice behavior. Introducing a third option which is asymmetrical dominated to the dominating option can influence one’s decision. The status quo, endowment and attraction or decoy effect are the main noises. Such noises are proof to counter the rational choice theory. This paper tries to observe the status quo and decoy effect. Existence of those two effects are examined in experimental observation with 32 respondents. Questionnaires are set for respondents to dig information about how their answers contain choices. Two and three varies alternatives are presented to see respondent choice feedback when a third inferior alternative is available. The result shows respondent tendency to switch options when status quo becomes a reference point.

Investigation of insect attraction effect of lamps with different color temperatures

The aim of our research is to analyze the ecological effects of light sources of different colors. Quantity and size of arthropods captured by light traps are continuously recorded by the Zoolog auto sampler, along with temperature and humidity data. By statistically analyzing large amounts of data, it is possible to estimate the amount of biomass removed by different types of lamps from their habitat, to monitor daily and longer-term activity changes, and to analyze the attractiveness of LEDs of different color temperatures. This will also allow conclusions to be drawn for conservation management.

Trying to Deteriorate an Attraction Effect: A Lesson for Challengers

The study is designed to answer a question: Can competitors override the effect of attraction that a particular firm’s product has been experiencing? The study demonstrates that sale promotions, particularly discount and rebate, could lead to the alteration of attitude. Data are analyzed by employing Amos 22.0 and SPSS 21.0. The findings are not far from the expectation, that after the promotion of the competitor’s product, the attraction effect is no longer remaining. The customers’ intention to buy the product promoted obviously increases. In addition, hypotheses relating with attraction effect and theory of planned behavior are supported.

A Model of Relative Thinking

Fixed differences loom smaller when compared to large differences. We propose a model of relative thinking where a person weighs a given change along a consumption dimension by less when it is compared to bigger changes along that dimension. In deterministic settings, the model predicts context effects such as the attraction effect but predicts meaningful bounds on such effects driven by the intrinsic utility for the choices. In risky environments, a person is less likely to sacrifice utility on one dimension to gain utility on another that is made riskier. For example, a person is less likely to exert effort for a fixed monetary return if there is greater overall income uncertainty. We design and run experiments to test basic model predictions and find support for these predictions.