Decision Structuring with Phantom Alternatives

Peter H. Farquhar and Anthony R. Pratkanis
Additional contact information
Peter H. Farquhar: Drucker Management Center, The Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California 91711
Anthony R. Pratkanis: University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064

Management Science, 1993, vol. 39, issue 10, 1214-1226

Abstract: A phantom alternative is an illusory choice option---it looks real but for some reason is unavailable at the time a decision is made. Phantoms can both help and hinder successful decision making. On the one hand, phantoms can provide useful information on the boundaries of a decision problem and thus help generate new options through a restructuring of the problem. But phantoms can also produce biases, deception, and suboptimal decisions. We argue that phantoms should be considered explicitly in decision structuring rather than being allowed to work their effects surreptitiously. We offer guidelines on recognizing unavailable alternatives, utilizing the information provided by phantoms, counteracting phantom biases, avoiding deception in decision structuring, and guarding against suboptimal decisions.

Keywords: decision analysis; problem structuring; unavailability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.39.10.1214 (application/pdf)

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:inm:ormnsc:v:39:y:1993:i:10:p:1214-1226

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().