Attentional shifts and preference reversals: An eye-tracking study

Carlos Alós-Ferrer, Alexander Jaudas and Alexander Ritschel

Judgment and Decision Making, 2021, vol. 16, issue 1, 57-93

Abstract: The classic preference reversal phenomenon, where monetary evaluations contradict risky choices, has been argued to arise due to a focus on outcomes during the evaluation of alternatives, leading to overpricing of long-shot options. Such an explanation makes the implicit assumption that attentional shifts drive the phenomenon. We conducted an eye-tracking study to causally test this hypothesis by comparing a treatment based on cardinal, monetary evaluations with a different treatment avoiding a monetary frame. We find a significant treatment effect in the form of a shift in attention toward outcomes (relative to probabilities) when evaluations are monetary. Our evidence suggests that attentional shifts resulting from the monetary frame of evaluations are a driver of preference reversals.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:1:p:57-93_4

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Judgment and Decision Making from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().