The elusiveness of context effects in decision making. Issue 10 (October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Spektor, Mikhail S.; Bhatia, Sudeep; Gluth, Sebastian
• Is Part Of: Trends in cognitive sciences. Volume 25:Issue 10(2021)
• Page Start: 843
• Page End: 854
• Publication Date: 2021-10
• Subjects: context effects -- preferential choice -- perceptual choice -- spatial arrangement -- attribute concreteness -- deliberation time; Cognitive science -- Periodicals; Cognitive neuroscience -- Periodicals; 153.05
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.07.011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1364-6613

Abstract

Abstract : Contextual features influence human and non-human decision making, giving rise to preference reversals. Decades of research have documented the species and situations in which these effects are observed. More recently, however, researchers have focused on boundary conditions, that is, settings in which established effects disappear or reverse. This work is scattered across academic disciplines and some results appear to contradict each other. We synthesize recent findings and resolve apparent contradictions by considering them in terms of three core categories of decision context: spatial arrangement, attribute concreteness, and deliberation time. We suggest that these categories could be understood using theories of choice representation, which specify how context shapes the information over which deliberation processes operate. Highlights: The study of how the composition of choice sets affects choices has been a thriving research topic for many years now. Among the many different context effects, the three main ones, attraction, compromise, and similarity effects, have been demonstrated across a wide variety of settings and species. Research in recent years has shown that a variety of simple, seemingly irrelevant changes in the experimental setting can make each of the three main context effects disappear or even reverse. None of these effects seems to be compatible with existing theoretical approaches, or with each other, for that matter. Empirical research has far outpaced theoretical development. The current approach to context-effect research has reached a hard boundary. The field needs a coherent synthesis of the existing literature and a research agenda that overcomes the past shortcomings.