Preference reversals resulting from a market value heuristic

Abstract

Two studies demonstrated preference reversals using consumer products. Some subjects made a choice between a pair of food or hygiene products while others assigned minimum selling prices to each product. Product pairs were selected such that one item had a high market price but was undesirable (e.g. eggplant roulettes) while the other item had a low market price but was desirable (e.g. a can of soda). As predicted, most subjects choose the low market price/desirable item, but the high market price/undesirable item was assigned a higher minimum selling price. Experiment 1 used a hypothetical questionnaire, while in Experiment 2 responses had real consequences. The results suggest a market value heuristic such that when decision makers are unsure of how to translate their preference into a specific dollar amount they substitute the product's market price for their own preference. The implication of this heuristic is that if merchants consistently set the retail price of a particular product at a certain level, consumers will use that retail price as the basis of their pricing evaluations and will come to value the product at the retail price.