Slider Scale or Text Box: How Response Format Shapes Responses

Abstract

Consumer payments elicited on slider scales can be systematically different from those elicited through text boxes because of the end point assimilation effect. When people use text boxes to make payments, they evaluate monetary values relative to the starting point of the response range. In contrast, when people use slider scales, they evaluate monetary values relative to the starting point as well as the end point of the response range. Consequently, payments elicited on slider scales tend to be assimilated toward the end point of the response range. This slider scale end point assimilation effect varies for ascending and descending payment formats. For ascending payment formats (e.g., eBay bids), slider scales elicit higher payments than text boxes. But for descending payment formats (e.g., Priceline bids), slider scales elicit lower payments than text boxes. This research not only documents how slider scales alter consumer payments, but also explains how the mental number line affects financial decisions.Keywords: behavioral pricing, consumer payments, contingent valuations, numerical cognition, response format, mental number line, end point assimilation, slider scales A re payment responses elicited through slider scales different from those elicited through open-ended text boxes? This question is relevant for organizations that use participative pricing strategies and researchers interested in measuring contingent valuations. The proliferation of online transactions has increased the popularity of participative pricing models where customers choose what they want to pay. Online bidding has become quite commonplace. eBay allows customers to bid on listed items. WineBid allows customers to bid on wines of their choosing. Even charity websites, such as Doctors Without Borders, allow donors to enter a donation amount of their choice. With the increasing popularity of transactions on handheld devices such as mobile phones and tablets, organizations are increasingly using slider scales rather than text boxes to allow people to enter values with the swipe of a finger rather than laboriously typing values with their thumbs. For example, Priceline-the online retailer of travel services that allows its customers to bid on hotel rooms-uses text boxes on its web page and slider scales on its mobile application. Do payment responses elicited through text boxes versus slider scales differ from each other in systematic ways? And if so, how? And why?The answers to these questions also have implications for academic research. Researchers often measure Manoj Thomas (manojthomas@cornell.edu) is an associate professor of marketing and the Breazzano Family Term Professorship of Management at the Samuel Curtis Johnson

Piloting Citizen Science Methods to Measure Perceptions of Carbon Footprint and Energy Content of Food

“…Evidence based dietary guidelines, advice, and policy encourages people toward sustainable and healthy diets (Kause et al, 2009; Health Council of the Netherlands, 2011; Ministers NC, 2014;Reynolds et al, 2014;Monteiro et al, 2015;Fischer and Garnett, 2016;Freidberg, 2016;van't Veer et al, 2017;Poore and Nemecek, 2018;CCC, 2020). However, recent research suggests there is a food-knowledge disconnect between the food research community, and the general public, with the citizens typically underestimating the carbon footprint, misestimating portion sizes, and energy content of foods (Rolls et al, 2002;Choi and Pak, 2006;Carels et al, 2007;Steenhuis and Vermeer, 2009;Chernev and Chandon, 2010;Miyazaki et al, 2011;Lee et al, 2012;Holmstrup et al, 2013;Cohen and Story, 2014;Liu et al, 2015;Jones et al, 2016;Panzone et al, 2016, in press;Hartmann and Siegrist, 2017;Edelson et al, 2018;Shi et al, 2018;Camilleri et al, 2019;Kemper et al, 2019;Thomas and Kyung, 2019). The public are motivated to reduce the environmental impact of their diet with two thirds of surveyed EU consumers being open to changes in diet and 40% having already reduced or stopped red meat consumption.…”

“…A direct comparison of input methods on selfreport drinking behavior found that responses using a slider were inflated compared to those input using a text box (Kemper et al, 2019), however it is not clear whether this effect will be present in measures related to perceptions of energy content and carbon footprint. As input method can impact participant response (Kemper et al, 2019;Thomas and Kyung, 2019), it is important to identify the most appropriate input method to gauge an accurate understanding of carbon footprint and energy content knowledge of citizens.…”

Heuristic price theory: A model of pluralistic price evaluations

“…Janiszewski & Uy, 2008; Northcraft & Neale, 1987;Pan & Thomas, 2022;Thomas & Kyung, 2019 Price fairness judgments: Is the price unfair? When people use this decision rule, they make a purchase decision by judging whether the price is fair or unfair.…”

The Effect of Social Distance in Donation-Based Crowdfunding

“…Because our dependent variable, Donation, is discrete and bounded at zero and follows a Poisson distribution, we used a Poisson regression to estimate the effect of the conditions on Donation (see also Thomas and Kyung 2019):…”