Antecedents of the Attraction Effect: An Information-Processing Approach

Many researchers have demonstrated the existence of an attraction effect that increases the choice probability of an existing “target” brand by the introduction of a relatively inferior “decoy” brand. This study develops a causal model that links antecedent variables with the attraction effect. We find that the attraction effect is explained to a considerable extent by changes in the following seven variables: (1) information relevance or stimulus meaningfulness, (2) product class knowledge, (3) task involvement, (4) perceived similarity between decoy and target, (5) relative brand preference, (6) share captured by decoy brand, and (7) perceived decoy popularity. The overall results were consistent across product classes studied, which included beer, cars, and TV sets. The popularity explanation for attraction effect, alluded to by Huber, Payne, and Puto (1982), was tested and found to hold true.

Transfer of Paired-Associates as a Function of Stimulus Meaningfulness

Paired-associate transfer in the A-D, A-B paradigm was negative for stimuli of high meaningfulness but not for stimuli of low meaningfulness. This result is consistent with Martin's hypothesis of variable encoding.