Examining models of nondominated decoy effects across judgment and choice

Three experiments explored cognitive models of inferior, compromise, and ph antom decoy effects in both judgment and choice, Participants made judgment s of attractiveness, justifiability, and evaluation anxiety associated with each alternative in the set, along with judgments of the attractiveness of each alternative's dimensional values. In another session, they also chose the alternative they most preferred. Results were analyzed in terms of the degree to which decoy effects reflected shifts in dimensional values or re flected emergent values based on relationships with other alternatives in t he set. Both emergent-value and value-shift models of inferior decoy effect s were supported, but only the emergent-value model of compromise decoy eff ects was supported. Results for the phantom decoy indicated that this effec t was choice-based and did not occur in judgment. Thus, although decoy effe cts were largely similar in choice and judgment, they also differed in impo rtant ways. (C) 2000 Academic Press.