Choosing versus rejecting: Why some options are both better and worse than others
Open accessAbstract
A previously unobserved pattern of choice behavior is predicted and corroborated. In line with the principle of compatibility, according to which the weighting of inputs is enhanced by their compatibility with output, the positive and negative dimensions of options (their pros and cons) are expected to loom larger when one is choosing and when one is rejecting, respectively. Subjects are presented with pairs of options, one of which--the enriched option--has more positive as well as more negative dimensions than does the other, impoverished, option. Because positive dimensions are weighted more heavily in choosing than in rejecting, and negative dimensions are weighted more heavily in rejecting than in choosing, the enriched option tends to be chosen and rejected relatively more often than the impoverished option. These findings are extended to nonbinary decision problems, and their implications for the rational theory of choice and for everyday decisions are discussed.
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For the Shafir (1993) study on choosing versus rejecting, the GPT sample successfully replicated the original result but did not replicate the corresponding Many Labs 2 result.
“For the study of Shafir (1993) on the effect of choosing versus rejecting on relative desirability, our GPT sample successfully replicated the original result, but did not replicate the corresponding Many Labs 2 result.”
From Diminished diversity-of-thought in a standard large language model (2024) · cites this paper as Shafir (1993)
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- Authors
- Shafir, E.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Shafir, Eldar
- ORCID
- Shafir, Eldar
- Venue
- Memory & Cognition
- Published
- 1993-07
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 546-556
- ISSN
- 0090-502X (ISSN-L)
- 1532-5946
- OpenAlex
- W2088424126
- Cited by
- 573
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 18 · 2012: 32
- FWCI
- 4.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Memory & Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Cambridge
- National Institutes of Health (5r29mh046885-05)
- National Institute of Mental Health (1-R29-MH46885)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- decision-making, option evaluation, rational choice theory
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Choice Behavior, Concept Formation, Decision Making, Decision Theory, Female, Humans, Male, Probability Learning, Problem Solving, Rejection, Psychology
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