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On Attitudes to Choice: Some Experimental Evidence on Choice Aversion
[Freedom to Veto]

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  • Fabrice Le Lec
  • Benoît Tarroux

Abstract

This paper investigates experimentally how people value choice. Our experiments elicit subjects’ valuations of various choice sets (or menus) that differ in size and composition. The comparison of these valuations allows us to assess subjects’ preferences between sets and test a number of the theories of preferences over menus proposed in the literature. The results suggest that subjects are choice-averse: the value of a choice set is significantly and robustly lower than that of its preferred element, and adding a suboptimal option reduces the value of a set. The data also reveal that the quality of suboptimal elements has a positive effect on set preferences. Taken together, these results suggest two possible explanations. The first is that individuals fear making bad decisions in the final choice; the second is that people value choice sets heuristically as a whole, and not on the basis of their final consequences. Other explanations of choice aversion that appear in the literature are not fully consistent with the behavior we observe.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabrice Le Lec & Benoît Tarroux, 2020. "On Attitudes to Choice: Some Experimental Evidence on Choice Aversion [Freedom to Veto]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2108-2134.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jeurec:v:18:y:2020:i:5:p:2108-2134.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeea/jvz036
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    Cited by:

    1. Fabian Bopp, 2023. "An Experiment on Dilemma Aversion and Information Avoidance," Working Papers Dissertations 111, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    2. Spiller, Stephen A. & Ariely, Dan, 2020. "How does the perceived value of a medium of exchange depend on its set of possible uses?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 188-200.
    3. Fabrice Le Lec & Marianne Lumeau & Benoît Tarroux, 2022. "How choice proliferation affects revealed preferences," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(2), pages 331-358, September.
    4. Arlegi, Ritxar & Bourgeois-Gironde, Sacha & Hualde, Mikel, 2022. "Attitudes toward choice with incomplete preferences: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 663-679.
    5. Heiss, Florian & Ornaghi, Carmine & Tonin, Mirco, 2021. "Inattention vs switching costs: An analysis of consumers' inaction in choosing a water tariff," DICE Discussion Papers 366, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    6. Yosuke Hashidate & Tetsuya Kawamura & Fabrice Le Lec & Yusuke Osaki & Benoît Tarroux, 2024. "Impure motivations in social preferences: Experimental evidence from menu choices," Working Papers 2406, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.

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