Impacts of Visualizations on Decoy Effects

Yuin Jeong, Sangheon Oh, Younah Kang and Sung-Hee Kim
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Yuin Jeong: Management of Technology, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, Korea
Sangheon Oh: Department of IT Convergence, Dong-eui University, 176 Eomgwang-ro, Busanjin-gu, Busan 47340, Korea
Younah Kang: Underwood International College, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, Korea
Sung-Hee Kim: Department of Industrial ICT Engineering, Dong-eui University, 176 Eomgwang-ro, Busanjin-gu, Busan 47340, Korea

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 23, 1-19

Abstract: The decoy effect is a well-known, intriguing decision-making bias that is often exploited by marketing practitioners to steer consumers towards a desired purchase outcome. It demonstrates that an inclusion of an alternative in the choice set can alter one’s preference among the other choices. Although this decoy effect has been universally observed in the real world and also studied by many economists and psychologists, little is known about how to mitigate the decoy effect and help consumers make informed decisions. In this study, we conducted two experiments: a quantitative experiment with crowdsourcing and a qualitative interview study—first, the crowdsourcing experiment to see if visual interfaces can help alleviate this cognitive bias. Four types of visualizations, one-sided bar chart, two-sided bar charts, scatterplots, and parallel-coordinate plots, were evaluated with four different types of scenarios. The results demonstrated that the two types of bar charts were effective in decreasing the decoy effect. Second, we conducted a semi-structured interview to gain a deeper understanding of the decision-making strategies while making a choice. We believe that the results have an implication on showing how visualizations can have an impact on the decision-making process in our everyday life.

Keywords: decoy effect; consumer choice; debias; information visualization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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