A behavioral choice model when computational ability matters

This paper presents a model of how humans choose between mutually exclusive alternatives. The model is based on the observation that human decision makers are unable or unwilling to compute the overall worth of the offered alternatives. This approach models much human choice behavior as a process in which people seek to equate a less significant difference between alternatives on one dimension, thus leaving the greater one-dimensional difference to be differentiated as the determinant of the final choice. These aspects of the equate-to-differentiate model are shown to be able to provide an alternative and seemingly better account of the prominence effect. The model is also able to provide an explanation and prediction regarding the empirical violation of independence and transitivity axioms. It is suggested that the model allows understanding perplexing decision phenomena better than alternative models.