Could Ralph Nader’s Entrance and Exit Have Helped Al Gore? The Impact of Decoy Dynamics on Consumer Choice
By Haipeng "Allan" Chen, William Hedgcock, Akshay Rao
June 2009
Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 46, #3, pp. 330-343
Abstract
Individuals are frequently faced with making a new choice decision after a preferred option becomes unavailable. Prior research on the “attraction effect” has demonstrated how the introduction of an option into a choice set increases the share of one of the original options. The authors examine the related but heretofore unaddressed issue of whether the unexpected exit of an option from a choice set returns the choice shares of the original options to the status quo ante. In a series of experiments, they observe that when an option turns out to be unselectable following a choice problem in which it was selectable, the choice shares of the remaining options are predictably different, relative to a choice problem in which the option was unselectable to start with. They also observe that this attraction effect due to the disappearance of a decoy is likely a consequence of changes in the importance of decision criteria. They conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications of the research.
Keywords
Consumer Choice, Decoy Effect, Phantom, Political Choice
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