Acta academica karviniensia 2020, 20(2):21-32 | DOI: 10.25142/aak.2020.007


IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTOR INCOME ON THE DECOY EFFECT for two examined products categories

Radka Kubalová
Silesian University, School of Business Administration, Univerzitní nám. 1934/3,733 40 Karviná

According to the previous research about consumer behaviour, adding a decoy option (inferior option) to a set of original options often increases the individual’s preference for one option over the other original option. In this paper, the possible impact of income as a traditional demographic factor on the phenomenon is explored and discussed in the case of two product categories: washing machines and gym season-tickets. The analysed data were obtained in an online experiment with 260 participants where the presence of the decoy effect has been confirmed for the two mentioned product categories. The effect sizes for consumer groups based on the income level are tested by Chi-squared test. It was found out that not all income categories display the decoy effect and the income categories which exhibited the decoy effect differed between the two examined product categories. The strength of the decoy effect was proved to be dependent on the income category.

Keywords: attraction effect, consumer decision making, context effects, effect of asymmetrically dominated alternatives, choice, season tickets, washing machines.
JEL classification: D91

Received: October 1, 2020; Revised: December 9, 2020; Accepted: January 27, 2021; Published: January 28, 2021  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Kubalová R.
IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTOR INCOME ON THE DECOY EFFECT for two examined products categories. Acta academica karviniensia. 2020;20(2):21-32. doi: 10.25142/aak.2020.007.
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. AJZEN, I. and M. FISHBEIN, 2005. The influence of attitudes on behavior. In: ALBARRACIN, D. B., B. JOHNSON and M. ZANNA, eds. The handbook of attitudes. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 173-221. ISBN 978-0-8058-4492-4.
    2. ARIELY, D. and T. S. WALLSTEN, 1995. Seeking Subjective Dominance in Multidimensional Space: An Explanation of the Asymmetric Dominance Effect. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 63(3), 223-232. ISSN 0749-5978. Go to original source...
    3. BARTOLI, A. and K. VARINI, 2011. Market Segmentation: Does It Work? [online]. Conference paper: 29th EuroCHRIE Conference, Dubrovnik [cit. 3rd August 2012]. Accessible from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266858293_Market_Segmentation_Does_it_work
    4. BATESON, M., S. D. HEALY and T. A. HURLY, 2003. Context-dependent foraging decisions in rufous hummingbirds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 270(1521), 1271-1276. ISSN 1471-2954. Go to original source...
    5. CHOPLIN, J. M. and J. E. HUMMEL, 2005. Comparison-induced decoy effects. Memory & Cognition, 33(2), 332-43. ISSN 0090-502X. Go to original source...
    6. CHUANG, S. CH. and R. YEN, 2007. The impact of a product's country-of-origin on compromise and attraction effects. Marketing Letters, 18(4), 279-291. ISSN 0923-0645. Go to original source...
    7. CRAIK, F. I. M. and T. A. SALTHOUSE, 2008. The handbook of aging and cognition. New York: Psychology Press, pp. 672. ISBN 978-0-8058-5990-4.
    8. CZECH STATISTICAL OFFICE, 2020. Average wages - 2nd quarter of 2020 [online]. [cit. 30th September 2020]. Accessible from: https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/ari/average-wages-2-quarter-of-2020
    9. DHAR, R. and I. SIMONSON, 2003. The Effect of Forced Choice on Choice. Journal of Marketing Research, 40(2), 146-160. ISSN 1547-7193. Go to original source...
    10. ĎURINÍK, M., 2013. Influencing a Warranty Choice with the Introduction of an Inferior Alternative into the Choice Set. In: Sborník příspěvků VI. Mezinárodní vědecké konference doktorandů a mladých vědeckých pracovníků. Karviná: SU - OPF, pp. 249-257. ISBN 978-80-7248-901-5.
    11. FREDERICK, S., L. LEE and E. BASKIN, 2014. The Limits of Attraction. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(4), 487-507. ISSN 1547-7193. Go to original source...
    12. HA, Y. - W., S. PARK and H. K. AHN, 2009. The influence of categorical attributes on choice context effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(3), 463-477. ISSN 1537-5277. Go to original source...
    13. HEATH, T. B. and S. CHATTERJEE, 1995. Asymmetric Decoy Effects on Lower-Quality versus Higher-Quality Brands: Meta-analytic and Experimental Evidence. Journal of Consumer Research, 22(3), 268-284. ISSN 1537-5277. Go to original source...
    14. HUBER, J., J. W. PAYNE and C. PUTO, 1982. Adding Asymmetrically Dominated Alternatives: Violations of Regularity and the Similarity Hypothesis. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(1), 90-98. ISSN 1537-5277. Go to original source...
    15. HUBER, J., J. W. PAYNE, and C. P. PUTO, 2014. Let's be honest about the attraction effect. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(4), 520-525. ISSN 1547-7193. Go to original source...
    16. KAPTEIN, M. C., R. V. EMDEN and D. IANNUZZI, 2016. Tracking the decoy: maximizing the decoy effect through sequential experimentation. Palgrave Communications, 2, 1-9. ISSN 2055-1045. Go to original source...
    17. KIM, S. and L. HASHER, 2005. The attraction effect in decision making: Superior performance by older adults. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 58(1), 120-133. ISSN 1747-0226. Go to original source...
    18. KUBALOVÁ, R., 2020. Impact of Demographic Factors Gender and Age on the Decoy Effect. Journal of Economics and Social Research, 21(1), 25-33. ISSN 1335-7069.
    19. LEVAV, J., R. KIVETZ and C. CHO, 2010. Motivational Compatibility and Choice Conflict. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(3), 429-442. ISSN 1537-5277. Go to original source...
    20. LICHTERS, M., P. BENGART, M. SARSTEDT and B. VOGT, 2015. What really matters in attraction effect research: when choices have economic consequences. Marketing Letters, 28(1), 127-138. ISSN 0923-0645. Go to original source...
    21. LIN, CH. H., Y. CH. SUN, S. CH. CHUANG and H. J. SU, 2008. Time Pressure and the Compromise and Attraction Effects in Choice. In LEE, A., SOMAN, D (eds). Advances in Consumer Research Volume 35. Duluth, USA: Association for Consumer Research, pp. 348-352.
    22. MAO, W. and H. OPPEWAL, 2012. The attraction effect is more pronounced for consumers who rely on intuitive reasoning. Marketing Letters, 23(1), 339-351. ISSN 0923-0645. Go to original source...
    23. MILBERG, S. J., M. SILVA, P. CELEDON and F. SINN, 2014. Synthesis of attraction effect research: Practical market implications? European Journal of Marketing, 48(7/8), 1413-1430. ISSN 0309-0566. Go to original source...
    24. PARRISH, A. E., T. H. EVANS and M. J. BERAN, 2015. Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) exhibit the decoy effect in a perceptual discrimination task. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 77, 1715-1725. ISSN 1943-3921. Go to original source...
    25. PETTIBONE, J. C. and D. H. WEDELL, 2007. Testing alternative explanations of phantom decoy effects. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20(3), 323-341. ISSN 1099-0771. Go to original source...
    26. ROGERS, E. S., E. A. VARGAS and E. VOIGT, 2020. Exploring the decoy effect to guide tobacco treatment choice: a randomized experiment. BMC Research Notes, 13(3), 1-5. ISSN 1756-0500. Go to original source...
    27. STATISTA.COM, 2020. Distribution of Facebook users worldwide as of July 2020, by age and gender [online]. [cit. 30th September 2020]. Accessible from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/376128/facebook-global-user-age-distribution/
    28. TENTORI, K., D. OSHERON, L. HASHER and C. MAY, 2001. Wisdom and aging: Irrational preferences in college students but not older adults. Cognition, 81, B87-B96. ISSN 0010-0277. Go to original source...
    29. WU, CH. and K. COSGUNER, 2020. Profiting from the Decoy Effect: A Case Study of an Online Diamond Retailer. Marketing Science, forthcoming. ISSN 1526-548X. Go to original source...
    30. WU, S. and R. YU, 2018. Fatigue biases the decoy effect in males but not females. International Journal of Psychology, 54(5), 604-6011. ISSN 1464-066X. Go to original source...
    31. YANG, S. S. and M. LYNN, 2014. More Evidence Challenging the Robustness and Usefulness of the Attraction Effect. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(4), 508-513. ISSN 1547-7193. Go to original source...
    32. ZHEN, S. and R. YU, 2016. The development of the asymmetrically dominated decoy effect in young children. Scientific Reports, 6, Article 22678. ISSN 2045-2322. Go to original source...

    Return to the content