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Choice context influences decision processes and is one of the primary determinants of what people choose. This insight has been used by academics and practitioners to study decision biases and to design behavioral interventions to influence and improve choices. We analyzed the effects of context-based behavioral interventions on the computational mechanisms underlying decision-making. We collected data from two large laboratory studies involving 19 prominent behavioral interventions, and we modeled the influence of each intervention using a leading computational model of choice in psychology and neuroscience. This allowed us to parametrize the biases induced by each intervention, to interpret these biases in terms of underlying decision mechanisms and their properties, to quantify similarities between interventions, and to predict how different interventions alter key choice outcomes. In doing so, we offer researchers and practitioners a theoretically principled approach to understanding and manipulating choice context in decision-making.
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Theories of Context Effects in Multialternative, Multiattribute Choice
Over the past several decades, researchers in psychology, neuroscience, marketing, and economics have been keen to understand context effects in multialternative, multiattribute decision making. These effects occur when choices among existing alternatives are altered by the addition of a new alternative to the choice set. The effects violate classic decision theories and have led to the development of computational and mathematical models that explain how underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms give rise to the effects. This article reviews dynamic models of these effects, comparing mechanisms across models. Most models of context effects incorporate an attention mechanism, which suggests that attention plays an important role in multialternative, multiattribute decision making. I conclude by discussing recent empirical studies of attention and context effects and hypothesize that changes in attention could be responsible for recently observed reversals in context effects.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2305559
- PAR ID:
- 10373467
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
- Volume:
- 31
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 0963-7214
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 428-435
- Size(s):
- p. 428-435
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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