Simple Choice Experiment Research Articles

Can conformity overcome the yuck factor? Explaining the choice for recycled drinking water

Abstract Of the 17 SDGS, the United Nations has recently revealed that countries are not on track to receive the water and sanitation goals by the deadline. As climatic events decrease the reliability of traditional drinking sources, especially in cities, recycled drinking water (RDW) is becoming an increasingly important policy option. Yet, the implementation of RDW remains mired in difficulties, with the psychological “yuck” factor as a key obstacle. Studies of successful cases of RDW implementation show that trust, information and social norms are important. However, no studies of RDW have directly compared the relative importance of information to the power of social norms. This paper explores the role of conformity, as a social norm, in increasing public acceptance of recycled water for drinking. Using a simple choice experiment, we find that conformity per se appears to provide sufficient reason for behavioural change relating to recycled water, rather than information or economic incentives. This study is one of the first to present empirical evidence from a choice experiment on RDW, and has practical implications on the use of conformity as motivation to taking difficult decisions.

Gaze bias differences capture individual choice behaviour

How do we make simple choices such as deciding between an apple and an orange? Recent empirical evidence suggests that choice behaviour and gaze allocation are closely linked at the group level, whereby items looked at longer during the decision-making process are more likely to be chosen. However, it is unclear how variable this gaze bias effect is between individuals. Here we investigate this question across four different simple choice experiments and using a computational model that can be easily applied to individuals. We show that an association between gaze and choice is present for most individuals, but differs considerably in strength. Generally, individuals with a strong association between gaze and choice behaviour are worse at choosing the best item from a choice set compared with individuals with a weak association. Accounting for individuals' variability in gaze bias in the model can explain and accurately predict individual differences in choice behaviour.

The asymmetric response of farmers to an expected change in the price of rubber: The roles of sunk costs and path dependency

This study examines the impacts of sunk costs and path dependency of rubber farming on farmers’ production responses to expected changes in the price of rubber based on a simple choice experiment implemented in the upper Mekong region in March, 2013. The results show that nearly 73% of farmers choose to adjust their production behaviors when the price of rubber is hypothesized to increase by 50%, while only approximately 55% choose to adjust their behaviors when the price of rubber is hypothesized to decrease by 50%. The responses of farmers to these two hypothetical changes in the price of rubber are significantly asymmetric. The estimation results of empirical models consistently indicate that higher sunk costs and a longer path dependency of rubber farming significantly hinder the probability that smallholders will adjust their production behaviors in response to the two hypothetical changes in the price of rubber. The significant difference in the impacts of sunk costs and path dependency on the choice of response behaviors under the two hypothetical situations may, to some extent, help explain the observed asymmetric responses. Additionally, the impacts of sunk costs and path dependency on the specific adjustments to production behaviors are heterogeneous. The findings provide essential empirical evidences for the roles of sunk costs and path dependency in farmers' production behaviors in the context of the price volatility of agricultural products.

Regular Consistent Preferences

In a dynamic choice environment, an agent's tastes may change over time, leading to a conflict between plans made today and choices made in the future. In response, a consistent planner restricts herself to plans that she will actually follow, by anticipating today how she will rank continuation plans in the future. Since the agent's expected future rankings often play an important role in policy analysis, they need to be elicited from observable choices. In this paper, we provide a method to elicit expected future rankings by considering the agent's preferences today over dynamic decision problems. Our identification strategy exploits that, in many applications of the consistent planning model, future rankings are monotone with respect to a partial order, which provides an unambiguous ranking of some alternatives. Our results are developed in a general framework, and can therefore be used to elicit expected future rankings in many applications of the consistent planning model. To illustrate our findings, we consider a dynamic consumption problem with quasi-hyperbolic discounting, and show how the agent's expectations about her present-bias in the future can be elicited from simple choice experiments today.

Belleza y creatividad en un experimento simple de elección

Este trabajo presenta los resultados de un experimento simple de elección sobre dos objetos abstractos, uno angular y otro curvo, con el fin de estudiar los factores que determinan las decisiones estéticas de los individuos. Se pone a prueba la hipótesis de que el nivel de creatividad apreciado en una obra de arte no influye sobre las preferencias de los agentes. Se encuentra evidencia a favor de dicha hipótesis y de que un índice de belleza puede representar las preferencias del público.

‘Not on my vacation’: service encounters between able-bodied and disabled consumers – the case of high-contact service

ABSTRACTThe effect of service encounters on customer satisfaction in high-contact services is gaining wider recognition among academics and practitioners alike. In this exploratory study, we aimed at gaining insight into a specific service encounter, namely, between able-bodied and disabled customers. While many studies have addressed the experiences of disabled persons in a plethora of situations, including tourism and leisure settings, the service experience of able-bodied customers sharing a service environment with disabled customers has been overlooked. Using a simple choice experiment, we showed that when given textual information about the expected presence of disabled guests in advance, two-thirds of the able-bodied study participants would be willing to stay in a hotel with a minor to moderate probability of being co-present with disabled guests. However, when a visual aid was provided together with the textual information, this figure decreased significantly. Implications and potential recommendations for policy-makers and hotel managers are presented, as are suggestions for future research. Such research is imperative if better inclusion of disabled tourists is to be achieved, with the resulting realisation of the immense underexploited economic potential of disabled tourism.

Use of Cover for Concealment Behavior by Rainbow Trout: Influences of Cover Structure and Area

AbstractConcealment behavior by stream salmonids can benefit individuals and populations, but the availability of concealment habitat may be limited in many streams. Quantification of concealment habitat is likely to be a valuable process in the management of stream salmonids; it is a necessary step in the application of spatially explicit, individual‐based models that incorporate concealment behavior. We conducted a series of laboratory experiments with Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss to aid in the identification and quantification of concealment habitat. Overall, individual Rainbow Trout about 12 cm FL readily used low‐ceiling spaces with one, two, or four openings for concealment. Structures analogous to weakly undercut banks were used less. Mean use of different cover types was less variable in an experiment in which groups of three fish were tested. Individuals in groups rarely shared cover spaces, even though in another experiment individual fish readily occupied spaces less than 25% of the area of the spaces they rarely shared. One cover structure that was not preferred in a simple choice experiment was used as much as the preferred structure when the former was the only cover available, indicating that habitat preference experiments provide limited information when the issue is whether fish are willing to use specific habitats.Received February 16, 2016; accepted June 18, 2016 Published online October 14, 2016

How important is safety in making flight choices? Evidence from simple choice experiments

This paper examines the extent to which safety risk information influences flight choice. Simple stated choice experiments were implemented with four independent samples of college students, young non-college students and older employed people across a 20 months period. Strong consistency in the flight choice behaviour across the samples was observed. In particular, there is evidence that even if potential travellers do not nominate “safety” as a criterion in airline choice, when presented with safety information in a stated choice scenario, the respondents use that information to make decisions. However, there is also a significant variation in the extent to which the respondents are sensitive to the safety information, which was represented in the form of aircraft incidents similar to the way aviation statistics are used by the media. Understanding the reasons for the wide variability could help improve public acceptability and tolerance towards risk control measures in aviation.

Evidence that sex‐specific signals may support mate finding and limit aggregation in the dung beetle Aphodius fossor

1. In temperate climates, dung is often colonised by several species of endocoprid (dwelling) dung beetles which use pats for feeding, shelter, and reproduction.2. Endocoprid beetles aggregate even when offered patches (dung pats) of consistent age, size, and origin, suggesting that beetles themselves might influence the attractiveness of patches to members of their own species. Both pheromones, and physical changes to the structure of dung pats caused by colonising beetles have been suggested as mechanisms facilitating intraspecific aggregation, but neither of these hypotheses have been empirically tested.3. Using a common European dung beetle (Aphodius fossor L.), we conducted a simple choice experiment designed to test whether (i) earlier colonisation by conspecifics could alter dung attractiveness and (ii) whether attraction was influenced by sex‐specific signals.4. We found that female beetles are repelled by dung colonised by conspecific females and are attracted to dung colonised by conspecific males. Male beetles show no evidence of attraction or repellence for dung colonised by either sex. Neither in females nor males was uncolonised dung found to be significantly more or less attractive than predicted by non‐preference.5. Our results suggest that for A. fossor male‐produced signals may support mate finding in patchy environments, and that female‐produced signals may serve to discourage subsequent colonisation by additional females.

Does Market Experience Promote Rational Choice? Experimental Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

AbstractWe organize a field experiment with sesame farmers and brokers in northern Ethiopia to explore whether market experience fosters rational behavior—proxied by fewer Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preference (GARP) violations in a simple choice experiment. In the baseline study, farmers and brokers performed equally well or badly, which is consistent with qualitative evidence that the prior “trading experience” of our brokers is not obtained in a competitive setting. Following random assignment to a competitive market setting—a one-day trading session in a sesame auction—we find that treated farmers and brokers behave more rationally than their peers in the control group.

The Equity-Efficiency Trade-off in Environmental Policy: Evidence from Stated Preferences

The design of environmental policy raises several equity issues, in particular the distribution of benefits and costs. At the same time, it has often been argued that there is a trade-off in environmental policy between equity and efficiency, which brings these issues firmly to the attention of environmental economics. In this paper we use a simple choice experiment to elicit individual preferences over equity-efficiency trade-offs in the context of two environmental problems, local air pollution and global climate change. We find that equity matters to people as much as efficiency does in the design and delivery of environmental policy.

Optimal management of wetlands: Quantifying trade‐offs between flood risks, recreation, and biodiversity conservation

This paper employs a simple choice experiment to estimate the value of management options for the Bobrek wetland in Poland. The local public's valuation of several wetland management attributes, including flood risk reduction, biodiversity conservation and improvement of recreational access, are investigated. A latent class model is estimated to account for heterogeneity in the wetland management choices of the local public. The results reveal that there is considerable heterogeneity among the local public as two distinct segments are identified. For both of the segments, flood risk reduction, in the ranges considered, is more important than the other two attributes. The results of this study are expected to assist policy makers in undertaking effective flood risk reduction measures and formulating efficient, equitable and sustainable wetland management policies in accordance with the European Union's Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC).

The Equity-Efficiency Trade-Off in Environmental Policy: Evidence from Stated Preferences

The design of environmental policy raises several equity issues, in particular the distribution of benefits and costs. At the same time, it has often been argued that there is a trade-off in environmental policy between equity and efficiency, which brings these issues firmly to the attention of environmental economics. In this paper we use a simple choice experiment to elicit individual preferences over equity-efficiency trade-offs in the context of two environmental problems, local air pollution and global climate change. We find that equity matters to people as much as efficiency does in the design and delivery of environmental policy.

Rick-sensitive foraging in common shrews: an interruption model and the effects of mean and variance in reward rate

A model of risk-sensitive foraging based on a continuously foraging but interruptable predator is developed and tested in a simple choice experiment using common shrews.

EDTA chelation and zinc antagonism with cadmium in sediment: effects on the behavior and mortality of two infaunal amphipods

The two species of infaunal amphipod crustaceans Rhepoxynius abronius (Phoxocephalidae) and Eohaustorius sencillus (Haustoriidae) are characteristic of nearshore sandy bottoms along the California (USA) coast, and are highly sensitive to moderate levels of heavy metals. In laboratory experiments, both zinc and the chelator EDTA increased the survival of amphipods in sediment containing otherwise lethal levels of cadmium (8.5 μg g-1), which are representative of moderately polluted environments. In simple choice experiments, amphipods prefer sediment with complexed cadmium. The behavioral and survival patterns of both species were similar in the experiments. EDTA prevented about 50% of the added cadmium from initially being incorporated into the sediment, and increased the rate of cadmium released from the sediment. These data illustrate the limitations of operational definitions of chemical analyses, since weak-acid (0.5 N HCl) leaches that were intended to provide an estimate of the “biologically available” metal concentrations extracted both toxic and EDTA-complexed cadmium species and did not account for their antagonistic interctions with zinc.

Random utility models with equality: An apparent, but not actual, generalization of random utility models

A probabilistic model for choice, and preference, is introduced that includes (Tversky's) elimination by aspects model, and the random utility model, as special cases. The model is based on a covert sequential elimination process, the element that is finally chosen in a simple choice experiment being the eventual lone survivor of the elimination process. The model leads us to question the usual form of simple choice experiments, in which a subject must (eventually) choose one of the currently available alternatives, and to suggest that a much more realistic experimental design would allow the subject the no-choice option, i.e., he may refuse to accept any of the currently available alternatives.

Some probabilistic models of simple choice and ranking

A simple choice experiment is one in which a subject is asked to select among several alternatives according to some specified criterion, and a ranking experiment is one in which he is asked to rank order the alternatives, again according to some specified criterion. When decisions are governed by a probabilistic process, various connections are possible between simple choice and ranking behavior. In this paper we consider a set of conditions that assumes that the ranking probabilities can be expressed as a “natural” function of the simple choice probabilities. Under these conditions the binary choice probabilities on a finite set A determine the simple choice and ranking probabilities on every subset of A, and explicit forms are given for the functions relating the simple choice and ranking probabilities to the binary choice probabilities.