Compatibility Effects and Preference Reversals,
Abstract
Recent studies of decision making show that people's preferences among risky and riskless prospects often depend on the manner in which the options are described or framed. Much as changes in vantage point alter the apparent size of objects, different representations of a given decision problem induce predictable changes in preferences. These findings violate the normative principle of invariance, which states that the preference order between prospects should not depend on the manner in which they are described. This study investigates the effect of elicitation method on preferences among simple gambles. Three strategically equivalent elicitation procedures, choice, pricing, and attractiveness rating, produced reversals of preference when the same pairs of gambles were evaluated under different procedures. These results are attributed to the compatibility effect, a tendency to weight more heavily those aspects of the stimulus that are most easily mapped into the response. This phenomenon is described by a differential weighting model in which the effect of the elicitation procedure on the relative weighting of the stimulus attributes is expressed by a bias parameter b. Implications of these and related findings for the theory and the practice of decision making are discussed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 21, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA148399
Entities
People
- A. Tversky
- P. Slovic