Incentivized and non-incentivized liking ratings outperform willingness-to-pay in predicting choice
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Date
2021-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
A core principle in decision science is that people choose according to their subjective values. These values are often measured using unincentivized scales with arbitrary units (e.g., from 0 to 10) or using incentivized willingness-to-pay (WTP) with dollars and cents. What is unclear is whether using WTP actually improves choice predictions. In this study, we compare the effects of three different subjective valuation procedures: an unincentivized rating scale, the same scale with incentivization, and incentivized WTP. We use these subjective values to predict behavior in a subsequent binary food-choice task and find that the unincentivized rating task performs better than the incentivized WTP task and no worse than the incentivized rating task. These findings challenge the view that incentives necessarily lead to better performance. In fact, commonly used measures such as WTP may reduce predictive power.
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Keywords
Incentivization, Subjective Valuation, Ratings, Decision Making