The influence of rankings on attribute weights in multi-attribute decision tasks

This paper investigates two alternative mechanisms through which rankings may influence attribute weights. While the choice of sorting attribute may serve as a sign of relevance (conversational norms mechanism), consumers could also deduce attribute importance from the ease of processing (fluency mechanism). It is shown that rankings only influence the weight of less familiar attributes. Using eye-movement data, we found the sorting attribute to correspond with a decrease in attention, which is not compatible with the conversational norms mechanism. We provide evidence for the “ease of comparison” as an explaining factor with a cognitive load manipulation.