Tuesday, December 28, 2010
"Extremeness Seeking " by Dilip Soman
Extremeness seeking
| Author: Dilip Soman |
Decision researchers have long been interested in behaviours that deviate from rational choice.
Of these, the compromise effect has received considerable attention, with it repeatedly shown that the probability of choosing an item increases when that item is a middling, as opposed to extreme, alternative in a choice set. The term extremeness avoidance has been used to describe the reason underlying this phenomenon.
In this research, we argue that extremeness avoidance behaviour depends on assortment type, with consumers displaying extremeness avoidance for alignable assortments, but systematically and predictably displaying extremeness seeking for non-alignable assortments. Across three studies, we show the extremeness seeking effect, contrast it with extremeness avoidance, and explore its underlying cause. As the variety of choices available to consumers grows in size and those choices vary in their distinct features, consumers often prefer the options at either extreme — either the basic model or the fully loaded model.
