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Two studies demonstrated preference reversals using consumer products. Some subjects made a choice between a pair of food or hygiene products while others assigned minimum selling prices to each product. Product pairs were selected such that one item had a high market price but was undesirable (e.g. eggplant roulettes) while the other item had a low market price but was desirable (e.g. a can of soda). As predicted, most subjects choose the low market price/desirable item, but the high market price/undesirable item was assigned a higher minimum selling price. Experiment 1 used a hypothetical questionnaire, while in Experiment 2 responses had real consequences. The results suggest a market value heuristic such that when decision makers are unsure of how to translate their preference into a specific dollar amount they substitute the product's market price for their own preference. The implication of this heuristic is that if merchants consistently set the retail price of a particular product at a certain level, consumers will use that retail price as the basis of their pricing evaluations and will come to value the product at the retail price.

ABSTRACTThis article explores the impact of consumers' regulatory goals on their relative focus on hedonic (versus utilitarian) benefits of products. Drawing from extant literature, we argue that promotion‐focused consumers will exhibit more favorable attitude towards a product when its hedonic benefits are highlighted in comparison to its utilitarian benefits. Prevention‐focused consumers on the other hand will exhibit more favorable attitude towards a product when its utilitarian benefits are highlighted in comparison to its hedonic benefits. We further argue that this effect is moderated by contextual factors, such as evaluation mode. In addition, we argue that the posited difference only holds when the hedonic and utilitarian products are evaluated individually. When the two products are evaluated jointly, both promotion and prevention‐focused individuals will exhibit more favorable attitude towards the hedonic product. Two studies were conducted to test the hypotheses and findings supported our predictions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

1.The construction of preference : an overview /Sarah Lichtenstein and Paul Slovic --2.Relative importance of probabilities and payoffs in risk taking /Paul Slovic and Sarah Lichtenstein --3.Reversals of preference between bids and choices in gambling decisions /Sarah Lichtenstein and Paul Slovic --4.Response-induced reversals of preference in gambling : an extended replication in Las Vegas /Sarah Lichtenstein and Paul Slovic --5.Economic theory of choice and the preference reversal phenomenon /David M. Grether and Charles R. Plott --6.Contingent weighting in judgment and choice /Amos Tversky, Samuel Sattath and Paul Slovic --7.Cognitive processes in preference reversals /David A. Schkade and Eric J. Johnson.