Stimulus Characteristics and Attraction Effect: Role of qualitative and quantitative attribute values

Though attraction effect, when the choice share of an existing alternative increases with the introduction of an inferior decoy, is well-established in the literature, recent replication efforts have challenged its robustness. In this research, we demonstrate stimulus meaningfulness as a rationale for the lack of replication. In two studies, we show that when quantitative values are used attraction effect results from a lack of meaningfulness of the stimulus ratings; and attraction effect is eliminated when meaningful qualitative descriptions replace the quantitative values. We further demonstrate that such differences—attraction effect versus no attraction effect, emanate from a change in choice strategy from a choice simplifying non-compensatory decision making process, when stimulus meaningfulness is not clear, to a more engaging and normatively convincing compensatory processes with meaningful description of stimuli.