Abstract:

The preference reversal phenomenon, where monetary evaluations contradict risky choices, has been argued to arise due to differences in the salience of the outcome states (Salience Theory; Bordalo et al., 2012). Salience Theory argues that subjective probability weights of outcome states depend on the salience of those states, leading to larger overpricing of long-shot options compared to safer options during the evaluation phase. Such an explanation makes the implicit assumption that attentional shifts might drive the phenomenon. We conducted two pre-registered experiments, an online study (N = 256) and an eye-tracking study (N = 64), in which we investigate salience and attention in preference reversals, manipulating salience through presence of an alternative lottery in the evaluation phase.