Choosing What I Want versus Rejecting What I Do Not Want: An Application of Decision Framing to Product Option Choice Decisions
- 1 May 2000
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Marketing Research
- Vol. 37 (2), 187-202
- https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.37.2.187.18731
Abstract
The authors examine the effects of using a subtractive versus an additive option-framing method on consumers' option choice decisions in three studies. The former option-framing method presents consumers with a fully loaded product and asks them to delete options they do not want. The latter presents them with a base model and asks them to add the options they do want. Combined, the studies support the managerial attractiveness of the subtractive versus the additive option-framing method. Consumers tend to choose more options with a higher total option price when they use subtractive versus additive option framing. This effect holds across different option price levels (Study 1) and product categories of varying price (Study 2). Moreover, this effect is magnified when subjects are asked to anticipate regret from their option choice decisions (Study 2). However, option framing has a different effect on the purchase likelihood of the product category itself, depending on the subject's initial interest in buying within the category. Although subtractive option framing offers strong advantages to managers when product commitment is high, it appears to demotivate category purchase when product commitment is low (Study 3). In addition, the three studies reveal several other findings about the attractiveness of subtractive versus additive option framing from the standpoint of consumers and managers. These findings, in turn, offer interesting public policy and future research implications.Keywords
This publication has 23 references indexed in Scilit:
- Conflict and Loss Aversion in Multiattribute Choice: The Effects of Trade-Off Size and Reference Dependence on Decision DifficultyOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1996
- Mental Accounting and Changes in Price: The Frame Dependence of Reference DependenceJournal of Consumer Research, 1995
- Studies of Loss Aversion and Perceived NecessityThe Journal of Psychology, 1995
- Consumer Evaluations of Multiple Versus Single Price ChangeJournal of Consumer Research, 1993
- Choosing versus rejecting: Why some options are both better and worse than othersMemory & Cognition, 1993
- The Influence of Anticipating Regret and Responsibility on Purchase DecisionsJournal of Consumer Research, 1992
- Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent ModelThe Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1991
- The Effects of Knowledge, Motivation, and Type of Message on Ad Processing and Product JudgmentsJournal of Consumer Research, 1990
- Decision bias and personnel selection strategiesOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1987
- Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives.Psychological Review, 1986