Construal processes in preference assessment

Interpreting people's preferences requires understanding how they have cons trued their tasks, interpreting the proposed alternatives in the context wh ere the evaluation is being made. With stylized experimental or survey choi ces, researchers' challenge is typically identifying the features that peop le add in order to make their task real enough to answer (i.e., how they re ad between the lines). With rich "real world" choices, researchers' challen ge is typically identifying the features that people neglect, as they reduc e their task to manageable complexity (i.e., which lines they choose to rea d). In either case, if people misunderstand or mistrust the stated transact ion, they may evaluate a different offer than the one that was proposed. Su ch misconstruals are a nuisance for investigators, insofar as dealing with them delays the measurements that motivated the research. However, they can also provide an opportunity, by focusing attention on how people give mean ing to choice situations. This article describes procedures for studying co nstrual processes, strategies for getting people to answer the questions th at interest researchers, and options for interpreting responses when people construe questions differently than was intended.