An Evolutionary Perspective in Tourism: The Role of Socioeconomic Status on Extremeness Aversion in Travel Decision Making

The present research investigates a novel relationship between travelers’ childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and travel decision-making. We theorize that travelers from lower childhood SES or resource-scarce/unpredictable environments are more likely to avoid extreme options in a choice set. Five studies consistently show that childhood SES is negatively associated with extremeness aversion in diverse travel choices. We also demonstrate that the general risk tendency mediates the relationship between childhood SES and extremeness aversion in travel decision making (studies 3A and 3B). Lastly, we reveal that childhood SES is more likely to predict extremeness aversion when a choice set involves a quality–price trade-off rather than a quality–quality trade-off (study 4). This research introduces evolutionary aspects to explain pervasive behavioral tendencies in the context of travel and tourism and offers new insights to practitioners.

COVID-19 and Extremeness Aversion: The Role of Safety Seeking in Travel Decision Making

Combining conceptual perspectives from emerging research on COVID-19, safety-seeking motivations, and extremeness aversion in choice (i.e., compromise effects), we examine how and why the perceived threat of COVID-19 affects consumers’ choice and decision making in the hotel and restaurant domains. Across seven studies (two studies from secondary data sets and five experimental studies), we provide novel evidence that the perceived threat or threat salience of COVID-19 amplifies the general tendency to select compromise options, avoiding extreme ones, within a choice set. We highlight the role of safety-seeking motivations as the underlying mechanism in the relationship between perceived threat and extremeness aversion in choice. We further document a boundary condition that the extremeness aversion effect is stronger for leisure travelers than for business travelers.

Extremeness Aversion Is a Cause of Anchoring

When estimating unknown quantities, people insufficiently adjust from values they have previously considered, a phenomenon known as anchoring. We suggest that anchoring is at least partially caused by a desire to avoid making extreme adjustments. In seven studies ( N = 5,279), we found that transparently irrelevant cues of extremeness influenced people’s adjustments from anchors. In Studies 1–6, participants were less likely to adjust beyond a particular amount when that amount was closer to the maximum allowable adjustment. For example, in Study 5, participants were less likely to adjust by at least 6 units when they were allowed to adjust by a maximum of 6 units than by a maximum of 15 units. In Study 7, participants adjusted less after considering whether an outcome would be within a smaller distance of the anchor. These results suggest that anchoring effects may reflect a desire to avoid adjustments that feel too extreme.

The Asymmetric Impact of Context on Advantaged versus Disadvantaged Options

Despite substantial prior research regarding the effect of context on choices, uncertainty remains regarding when particular context effects will be observed. In this article, the authors advance a new perspective on context-dependent choices, according to which context effects are a function of the relative advantage of one option over another and of the different strategies that decision makers evoke when making a choice. They propose that context effects resulting from the addition of a third option to a two-option set are more frequently observed when the added option is relatively similar (adjacent) to the “disadvantaged” alternative (i.e., the lower-share option) in the set. The authors conduct a series of studies to analyze the occurrence of context effects and find support for predictions related to asymmetric dominance and extremeness aversion.