IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/mktlet/v33y2022i2d10.1007_s11002-021-09596-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

To buy or how much to buy? Partition dependence in purchase-quantity decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Nader T. Tavassoli

    (London Business School)

  • Matteo Visentin

    (Google Cloud Platform)

Abstract

Four studies demonstrate that people are more likely to buy (but not to buy more) when directly asked how much to buy in response to a set of purchase quantities (0, 1, 2 … n) than when first asked whether to buy in response to a seemingly innocuous yes/no purchase-interest question. This finding is explained in terms of response-scale partitioning. A purchase-quantity scale has a single negative (0) and multiple (n) positive response options. In contrast, a dichotomous yes/no purchase-interest question has an equal proportion of negative (“no”) and positive (“yes”) response options, the latter of which subsumes all positive quantity options into one partition. Ascertaining purchase interest using a single negative and multiple positive response options (“no,” “mildly,” “somewhat,” “likely,” “very,” and “definitely”) eliminated the effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Nader T. Tavassoli & Matteo Visentin, 2022. "To buy or how much to buy? Partition dependence in purchase-quantity decisions," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 177-188, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:33:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11002-021-09596-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11002-021-09596-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11002-021-09596-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11002-021-09596-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Craig R. Fox & Robert T. Clemen, 2005. "Subjective Probability Assessment in Decision Analysis: Partition Dependence and Bias Toward the Ignorance Prior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(9), pages 1417-1432, September.
    2. Luce, Mary Frances, 1998. "Choosing to Avoid: Coping with Negatively Emotion-Laden Consumer Decisions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(4), pages 409-433, March.
    3. Prentice, Catherine & Wong, IpKin Anthony, 2015. "Casino marketing, problem gamblers or loyal customers?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2084-2092.
    4. Menon, Geeta & Raghubir, Priya & Schwarz, Norbert, 1995. "Behavioral Frequency Judgments: An Accessibility-Diagnosticity Framework," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 22(2), pages 212-228, September.
    5. Richard H. Thaler & Shlomo Benartzi, 2001. "Naive Diversification Strategies in Defined Contribution Saving Plans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 79-98, March.
    6. Eric Johnson & Suzanne Shu & Benedict Dellaert & Craig Fox & Daniel Goldstein & Gerald Häubl & Richard Larrick & John Payne & Ellen Peters & David Schkade & Brian Wansink & Elke Weber, 2012. "Beyond nudges: Tools of a choice architecture," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 487-504, June.
    7. Alison Jing Xu & Robert S. Wyer Jr., 2007. "The Effect of Mind-Sets on Consumer Decision Strategies," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(4), pages 556-566, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Feng, Zhiyu & Liu, Yukun & Wang, Zhen & Savani, Krishna, 2020. "Let’s choose one of each: Using the partition dependence effect to increase diversity in organizations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 11-26.
    2. Liangyan Wang & Xun Deng & Haipeng (Allan) Chen, 2024. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet? The impact of hierarchical labeling on consumers’ choices in tiered pricing plans," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 259-273, June.
    3. Lange, Jens & Krahé, Barbara, 2014. "The effects of information form and domain-specific knowledge on choice deferral," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 92-104.
    4. Daniel J. Benjamin, 2018. "Errors in Probabilistic Reasoning and Judgment Biases," NBER Working Papers 25200, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Brigitte C. Madrian, 2014. "Applying Insights from Behavioral Economics to Policy Design," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 663-688, August.
    6. Chenmu Xing & Katherine Williams & Jamie Hom & Meghana Kandlur & Praise Owoyemi & Joanna Paul & Ray Alexander & Elizabeth Shackney & Hilary Barth, 2020. "Partition dependence in financial aid distribution to income categories," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-13, April.
    7. Michael J. Barone & Thomas E. DeCarlo, 2003. "Emerging Forms of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Agricultural Producers," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 03-mrp5, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    8. Marttunen, Mika & Belton, Valerie & Lienert, Judit, 2018. "Are objectives hierarchy related biases observed in practice? A meta-analysis of environmental and energy applications of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(1), pages 178-194.
    9. Michael J. Barone & Thomas E. DeCarlo, 2003. "Emerging Forms of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Agricultural Producers," Midwest Agribusiness Trade Research and Information Center (MATRIC) Publications (archive only) 03-mrp5, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    10. Anne Lavigne, 2006. "Gouvernance et investissement des fonds de pension privés aux Etats-Unis," Working Papers halshs-00081401, HAL.
    11. Amos Schurr & Yaakov Kareev & Judith Avrahami & Ilana Ritov, 2012. "Taking the Broad Perspective: Risky Choices in Repeated Proficiency Tasks," Discussion Paper Series dp621, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    12. Magnus Söderberg, 2008. "Uncertainty and regulatory outcome in the Swedish electricity distribution sector," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 79-94, February.
    13. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    14. Miguel Godinho de Matos & Pedro Ferreira, 2020. "The Effect of Binge-Watching on the Subscription of Video on Demand: Results from Randomized Experiments," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1337-1360, December.
    15. Gerrans, Paul & Yap, Ghialy, 2014. "Retirement savings investment choices: Sophisticated or naive?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 233-250.
    16. Cristel Russell & Dale Russell & Jill Klein, 2011. "Ambivalence toward a country and consumers’ willingness to buy emblematic brands: The differential predictive validity of objective and subjective ambivalence measures on behavior," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 357-371, November.
    17. Gehrig, Thomas & Güth, Werner & Leví0nský, René & Popova, Vera, 2010. "On the evolution of professional consulting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 113-126, October.
    18. Barge-Gil, Andrés & García-Hiernaux, Alfredo, 2019. "Staking plans in sports betting under unknown true probabilities of the event," MPRA Paper 92196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Rui Pedro Brito & Hélder Sebastião & Pedro Godinho, 2016. "Efficient skewness/semivariance portfolios," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(5), pages 331-346, September.
    20. Cristiano Codagnone & Giuseppe Alessandro Veltri & Francesco Bogliacino & Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva & George Gaskell & Andriy Ivchenko & Pietro Ortoleva & Francesco Mureddu, 2016. "Labels as nudges? An experimental study of car eco-labels," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 33(3), pages 403-432, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:33:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11002-021-09596-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.