Consumer Choice Bias Due to Number Symmetry: Evidence from Real Estate Prices

Rational Consumers strive to make optimal purchasing decisions based on quality and price. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that innate psychological biases may thwart consumers in their attempts to make such decisions. One such bias is the human preference for objects that possess vert...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of research for consumers 2010-01 (17), p.1
Main Authors: Dobson, John, Gorman, Larry, Moore, Melissa Diane
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bias
Consumer behavior
Consumer education
Consumers
Decision making
Housing prices
Laboratories
Marketing
Parasites
Preferences
Prices
Psychology
Real estate
Students
Studies
Subconscious
Symmetry
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Rational Consumers strive to make optimal purchasing decisions based on quality and price. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that innate psychological biases may thwart consumers in their attempts to make such decisions. One such bias is the human preference for objects that possess vertical mirror symmetry; such symmetry is exhibited by many man-made and natural objects, including the human body and, most particularly, the human face. Here we study whether this symmetry bias extends also to number sequences that possess vertical mirror symmetry. Specifically, we use a laboratory setting to study whether home buyers are biased toward real estate prices that possess relatively higher degrees of vertical mirror symmetry. We find a statistically significant result, indicating that such a bias does indeed exist. Thus, although such a bias is well established in the evolutionary psychology literature, we show that it extends into the arena of consumer preferences based purely on visual representation of product price. Although the present study looks just at real-estate price preferences, the statistically significant results clearly have implications for all consumer choice decisions based, at least in part, on the physical representation of product price. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:1444-6359
1444-6359