Attractiveness of decision alternatives characterized by numerical and non‐numerical information

Abstract

Subjects judged the attractiveness of student apartments characterized by the attributes of size, standard and travelling time to the university. The information describing the apartments was given either in numerical (e.g., 21 m2) or verbal form (e.g., small). In the first experiment the verbal descriptions were scaled numerically to ensure comparability of the numerical and verbal presentations. In the second experiment, the subjects gave attractiveness judgments of these alternatives described in all different combinations of numerically and verbally presented attributes. In the third experiment, ananlyses of numerical judgments and think aloud protocols were used. The most important attribute was travelling time to the university. In general, numerical representation of the most important attribute tended to have somewhat greater impact on attractiveness judgements than verbal descriptions. This average tendency reflected a substantial difference for poor alternatives and a small or nonexisting effect for the most attractive apartments in the set of decision alternatives. This result was related to findings of different decision processes for choices among positive and negative decision alternatives.