This research investigates how the presence of a decoy and an uninformative cue influence decision making. When someone deciding between two or more options and an additional option (decoy) that biases participants towards one of the original options (target) is added, the decoy effect has occurred. The uninformative cue draw attention to one of the options. Previous research suggests that where visual attention is drawn can have an impact on decisions, so it is possible that the cue will influence decision-making. In two experiments, participants decided which cup of coffee they preferred amongst three options that varied in price and volume. Across trials, the decoy was designed to attempt to bias participants to choose either the high or low volume target. Additionally, a visual cue (arrow in Experiment 1 or relative brightness – salience – in Experiment 2) focused participants on one of the three choices on each trial. Across both experiments both variables impacted choice, but they did not interact. That is, the decoy indeed biased choice towards the intended target (e.g., more high-volume choices with high volume decoy) and the cue biased the participant’s choice towards the option it was drawing attention to (e.g., if the arrow was pointing towards the low-volume option it was chosen more frequently). However, cuing did not influence the magnitude of the decoy effect. Thus, the decoy effect and uninformative visual cues can be combined to influence consumer choice.
The Impact of the Decoy Effect and Visual Cues on Decision Making
Category
Psychology 2