Position Effects in Choice From Simultaneous Displays

From drop-down computer menus to department-store aisles, people in everyday life often choose from simultaneous displays of products or options. Studies of position effects in such choices show seemingly inconsistent results. For example, in restaurant choice, items enjoy an advantage when placed at the beginning or end of the menu listings, but in multiple-choice tests, answers are more popular when placed in the middle of the offered list. When reaching for a bottle on a supermarket shelf, bottles in the middle of the display are more popular. But on voting ballots, first is the most advantageous position. Some of the effects are quite sensible, whereas others are harder to justify and can aptly be regarded as biases. This article attempts to put position effects into a unified and coherent framework and to account for them simply by using a small number of familiar psychological principles.

[1]  Ian McAllister,et al.  Ballot position effects , 1990 .

[2]  Ariel Rubinstein,et al.  Naive Strategies in Competitive Games , 1997 .

[3]  Eric T. Bradlow,et al.  Shining in the Center: Central Gaze Cascade Effect on Product Choice , 2012 .

[4]  Sydney E. Scott,et al.  Nudge to nobesity I: Minor changes in accessibility decrease food intake , 2011, Judgment and Decision Making.

[5]  A. Wright,et al.  Picking and choosing. , 2011, Midwives.

[6]  M. Bar-Hillel,et al.  Guess Where: The Position of Correct Answers in Multiple-Choice Test Items as a Psychometric Variable , 2003 .

[7]  Priya Raghubir,et al.  Position-based beliefs: The center-stage effect , 2009 .

[8]  Rachel T. A. Croson,et al.  Biases in casino betting: The hot hand and the gambler’s fallacy , 2006, Judgment and Decision Making.

[9]  Eyal Ert,et al.  Mere Position Effect in Booking Hotels Online , 2016 .

[10]  Positional response bias in multiple-choice tests of learning: its relation to testwiseness and guessing strategy , 1987 .

[11]  Theodore P. Hill,et al.  The First Digit Phenomenon , 1998, American Scientist.

[12]  The Predominance of Seven and the Apparent Spontaneity of Numerical Choices , 2005 .

[13]  The effect of choice placement on the difficulty of multiple-choice questions. , 1945 .

[14]  Stephen J. Hoch,et al.  Shelf management and space elasticity , 1994 .

[15]  A. Marcus.  The effect of correct response location on the item difficulty level of multiple-choice questions. , 1963 .

[16]  Maya Bar-Hillel,et al.  We Sing the Praise of Good Displays: How Gamblers Bet in Casino Roulette , 2012 .

[17]  Maya Bar-Hillel.  Location, Location, Location: Position Effects in Choice Among Simultaneously Presented Options , 2011 .

[18]  P. Ayton,et al.  Subjective patterns of randomness and choice: some consequences of collective responses. , 2009, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[19]  J I Shaw,et al.  Centrality Preferences in Choices Among Similar Options , 2000, The Journal of general psychology.

[20]  M. R. Novick,et al.  Statistical Theories of Mental Test Scores. , 1971 .

[21]  KoppellJonathan Gs,et al.  The Effects of Ballot Position on Election Outcomes , 2014 .

[22]  Priya Raghubir,et al.  Center-of-inattention: Position biases in decision-making , 2006 .

[23]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. , 1977 .

[24]  J. Krosnick,et al.  The Impact of Candidate Name Order on Election Outcomes , 1998 .

[25]  Eran Dayan,et al.  Nudge to nobesity II: Menu positions influence food orders , 2011, Judgment and Decision Making.

[26]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  On the Psychology of Experimental Surprises , 1977 .

[27]  A. Jensen,et al.  Temporal and spatial effects of serial position. , 1962, The American journal of psychology.

[28]  A. Gustav.  RESPONSE SET IN OBJECTIVE ACHIEVEMENT TESTS. , 1963, The Journal of psychology.

[29]  C. R. Atwell,et al.  Wide range multiple choice vocabulary tests. , 1937 .

[30]  David L. Corsun,et al.  Are consultants blowing smoke? An empirical test of the impact of menu layout on item sales , 2003 .

[31]  Theodore P. Hill.  The First Digit Phenomenon , 1998 .

[32]  T. Schelling,et al.  The Strategy of Conflict. , 1961 .

[33]  K. A. Coney,et al.  Order-Bias: The Special Case of Letter Preference , 1977 .

[34]  J. Krosnick.  Response strategies for coping with the cognitive demands of attitude measures in surveys , 1991 .

[35]  N. Christenfeld.  Choices from Identical Options , 1995 .

[36]  K. Teigen.  Studies in subjective probability l: Prediction of random events , 1983 .

[37]  E. L. Clark.  General response patterns to five-choice items. , 1956 .

[38]  B. Moldovanu,et al.  Understanding Strategic Interaction: Essays in Honor of Reinhard Selten , 2011 .

[39]  A. Acquisti,et al.  "Heads or tails?"--a reachability bias in binary choice. , 2014, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[40]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  The accuracy of verbal reports about the effects of stimuli on evaluations and behavior , 1978 .

[41]  K. Hopkins,et al.  Intraindividual and Interindividual Positional Preference Response Styles in Ability Tests , 1964 .