Exploring the decoy effect to guide tobacco treatment choice: a randomized experiment

Erin S Rogers, Elizabeth A Vargas, Elizabeth Voigt, Erin S Rogers, Elizabeth A Vargas, Elizabeth Voigt

Abstract

Objectives: Guidelines recommend that smokers participate in four or more counseling sessions when trying to quit, but smokers rarely engage in multiple sessions. The "decoy effect" is a cognitive bias that can cause consumer preferences for a "target" product to change when presented with a similar but inferior product (a "decoy"). This study tested the use of a decoy to guide smokers' selection of a target number of counseling sessions. During an online survey, adult tobacco users (N = 93) were randomized to one of two groups that determined the answer choices they saw in response to a question assessing their interest in multi-session cessation counseling. Group A choose between two sessions or a "target" of five sessions. Group B was given a third "decoy" option of seven sessions. Binary logistic regression was used to compare groups on the proportion of participants selecting the "target."

Results: Among 90 participants with complete data, a decoy effect was not found. There was no significant difference between groups in the proportion of participants selecting the target of five sessions (47% in Group B vs. 53% in Group A; aOR = 0.76, 95%CI 0.48-1.19). Trial Registration This study was retrospectively registered at clinicaltrials.gov on December 13, 2019 (NCT04200157).

Keywords: Counseling; Smoking; Smoking cessation.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Operationalization of the decoy: time cost (minutes of counseling) and estimated quit rates of the counseling options presented to participants
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The proportion of participants selecting the counseling options with the decoy (Group B) and without the decoy (Group A)

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Source: PubMed

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