Behavioral Economics: The Decoy Effect

Abstract

Behavioral economics blends psychology and economics to determine how psychological triggers or nudges influence people's decision-making. The decoy effect has been a particular focus of study in the behavioral economics literature. The decoy effect is seen as an effective "Nudge" and is widely used by businesses. For example, magazine subscriptions, vacation destination choices, and sales of various products—where there is a choice, there is an arena for nudges. The marketplace is flooded with nudges to influence consumer choice; in everyday consumption, many businesses use the decoy effect to maximize sales of specific products or options to increase revenue. Based on a review of the relevant literature and practical case applications of the decoy effect, this study summarizes articles with similar conclusions which can support each other while also mentioning different views regarding the limitations and disagreements of the decoy effect in behavioral economics. However, in general, the effects carried by decoys are apparent and have been confirmed by a large amount of literature.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 0 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.