Abstract The attraction effect shows that adding a third alternative to a choice set can alter preference between the original two options. For over 30 years, this simple demonstration of context dependence has been taken as strong evidence against a class of parsimonious value‐maximising models that evaluate alternatives independently from one another. Significantly, however, in previous demonstrations of the attraction effect alternatives are approximately equally valuable, so there was little consequence to the decision maker irrespective of which alternative was selected. Here we vary the difference in expected value between alternatives and provide the first demonstration that, although extinguished with large differences, this theoretically important effect persists when choice between alternatives has a consequence. We use this result to clarify the implications of the attraction effect, arguing that although it robustly violates the assumptions of value‐maximising models, it does not eliminate the possibility that human decision making is optimal. © 2016 The Authors Journal of Behavioral Decision Making Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

中文翻译：

---

期望值对吸引力效应偏好逆转的影响

摘要 吸引力效应表明，在选择集中添加第三个选项可以改变原始两个选项之间的偏好。30 多年来，这种对上下文依赖的简单证明已被视为反对一类相互独立地评估替代方案的简约价值最大化模型的有力证据。然而，值得注意的是，在之前的吸引力效应演示中，替代方案的价值大致相同，因此无论选择哪种替代方案，对决策者的影响都很小。在这里，我们改变了备选方案之间预期值的差异，并提供了第一个证明，尽管由于巨大差异而消失，但当备选方案之间的选择产生后果时，这种理论上的重要影响仍然存在。我们使用这个结果来阐明吸引力效应的含义，认为虽然它强烈违反了价值最大化模型的假设，但它并没有消除人类决策是最优的可能性。© 2016 The Authors Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 由 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 出版。