Marketing Papers

Document Type

Technical Report

Date of this Version

2002

Publication Source

Medical Decision Making

Volume

23

Issue

5

Start Page

422

Last Page

434

DOI

10.1177/0272989X03257277

Abstract

Three experiments on the World Wide Web asked subjects to rate the severity of common health disorders such as acne or arthritis. People who had a disorder (“Haves”) tended to rate it as less severe than people who did not have it (“Not-haves”). Two explanations of this Have versus Not-have discrepancy were rejected. By one account, people change their reference point when they rate a disorder that they have. More precise reference points would, on this account, reduce the discrepancy, but, if anything, the discrepancy was larger. By another account, people who do not have the disorder focus on attributes that are most affected by it, and the discrepancy should decrease when people make ratings on several attributes. Again, if anything, the discrepancy increased when ratings were on separate attributes (combined by a weighted average). The discrepancy varied in size and direction across disorders. Subjects also thought that they would be less affected than others.

Copyright/Permission Statement

Baron, J., Asch, D.A., Fagerlin, A., Jepson, C., Loewenstein, G., Riis, J., Stineman, M.G., & Ubel, P.A., Effect of Assessment Method on the Discrepancy between Judgments of Health Disorders People Have and Do Not Have: A Web Study, Medical Decision Making 23, no. 5: pp. 422-434. Copyright © 2003 Society for Medical Decision Making. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.

This is a pre-publication version. The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0272989X03257277

Keywords

adaptation, utility assessment, response shift, focusing illusion

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Date Posted: 15 June 2018

This document has been peer reviewed.