| The asymmetric dominance effect (also called the attraction effect) refers to a phenomenon in which the addition of a new alternative (dominated by or inferior to one alternative, say B, but not the other, say A) into a choice set (e.g., alternatives A and B) significantly increases the proportion of people choosing the dominating alternative (alternative B) in the choice set with the sacrifice of itself (almost no one chooses this unattractive alternative). This switching of a choice due to an irrelevant alternative is considered an example of irrational or irregular behavior in the decision literature. Nevertheless, this effect has been demonstrated in many decision domains with undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students and also with real goods and consumers (e.g., Huber, Payne, & Puto, 1982).; A recent study, however, demonstrated that older adults do not show the asymmetric dominance effect while younger adults do using a grocery shopping problem (Tentori, Osherson, Hasher, & May, 2001). Based on this finding, Experiments 1 and 2 explored a question of whether older adults are generally better in decision making (show the asymmetric dominance effect less) than younger adults using four and two different problem domains, respectively. Next, Experiments 2 and 3 examined two questions of whether domain knowledge and interest reduce the asymmetric dominance effect and, if so, whether this influence of domain familiarity and interest on the asymmetric dominance effect is mediated by the differential weighting of the attributes in the choice domains.; In conclusion, with respect to aging, there is some suggestion that older adults may be generally wiser than younger adults in decision making. Next, regarding the questions of whether familiarity and interest influence the asymmetric dominance effect and whether this effect is mediated by the differential weighting of attributes, the answers to these questions are not conclusive from this research. The only strong conclusion is that the differential attribute weight definitely influences the asymmetric dominance effect, although what causes the differential weighting of attributes is not clear. |
