In accounting for phenomena present in preferential choice experiments, modern models assume a wide array of different mechanisms such as lateral inhibition, leakage, loss aversion, and saliency. These mechanisms create interesting predictions for the dynamics of the deliberation process as well as the aggregate behavior of preferential choice in a variety of contexts. However, the models that embody these different mechanisms are rarely subjected to rigorous quantitative tests of suitability by way of model fitting and evaluation. Recently, complex, stochastic models have been cast aside in favor of simpler approximations, which may or may not capture the data as well. In this article, we use a recently developed method to fit the four extant models of context effects to data from two experiments: one involving consumer goods stimuli, and another involving perceptual stimuli. Our third study investigates the relative merits of the mechanisms currently assumed by the extant models of context effects by testing every possible configuration of mechanism within one overarching model. Across all tasks, our results emphasize the importance of several mechanisms such as lateral inhibition, loss aversion, and pairwise attribute differences, as these mechanisms contribute positively to model performance. Together, our results highlight the notion that mathematical tractability, while certainly a convenient feature of any model, should neither be the primary impetus for model development nor the promoting or demotion of specific model mechanisms. Instead, model fit, balanced with model complexity, should be the greatest burden to bear for any theoretical account of empirical phenomena. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Greater numeracy has been correlated with better health and financial outcomes in past studies, but causal effects in adults are unknown. In a 9-week longitudinal study, undergraduate students, all taking a psychology statistics course, were randomly assigned to a control condition or a values-affirmation manipulation intended to improve numeracy. By the final week in the course, the numeracy intervention (statistics-course enrollment combined with values affirmation) enhanced objective numeracy, subjective numeracy, and two decision-related outcomes (financial literacy and health-related behaviors). It also showed positive indirect-only effects on financial outcomes and a series of STEM-related outcomes (course grades, intentions to take more math-intensive courses, later math-intensive courses taken based on academic transcripts). All decision and STEM-related outcome effects were mediated by the changes in objective and/or subjective numeracy and demonstrated similar and robust enhancements. Improvements to abstract numeric reasoning can improve everyday outcomes.

Diminishing marginal utility (DMU) is a basic tenet of economic and psychological models of judgment and choice, but its determinants are little understood. In the research reported here, we tested whether insensitivities in valuations of dollar amounts (e.g., $40, $100) may be due to inexact mappings of symbolic numbers (i.e., "40," "100") onto mental magnitudes. In three studies, we demonstrated that inexact mappings appear to guide valuation and mediate numeracy's relations with riskless valuations (Studies 1 and 1a) and risky choices (Study 2). The results highlight the fundamental notion that individuals' valuations of $100 depend critically on how individuals perceive and map the symbolic quantity "100." This notion has implications for conceptualizations of value, risk aversion, intertemporal choice, and dual-process theories of decision making. Normative implications are also briefly discussed.

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