SEEKING SUBJECTIVE DOMINANCE IN MULTIDIMENSIONAL SPACE - AN EXPLANATION OF THE ASYMMETRIC DOMINANCE EFFECT

An important example of the influence of context on elicited values and choice is the effect of asymmetrically dominated alternatives, first studied by Huber, Payne, and Puto (1982), A theory of dynamic choice reconstruction is presented to account for this effect. The theory is based on ideas of dominance seeking, in which the decision maker actively looks for ways to simplify the task. Results of three experiments showed that the relationship of an irrelevant alternative to others in the choice set influences the weights of the different dimensions as well as the values of the different items. The results support the claim that values depend on local relationships in a way that is consistent with the theory. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.