Does music in the mall affect your shopping decisions？——explaining the compromise effect in extremeness aversion theory

摘要: The compromise effect is common in shopping. Is it our aversion to extremes that have led to compromise? Experiment 1 manipulated the psychological expected loss values among the alternative options based on expected-loss minimization theory. Experiment 2 further verified that the extremeness aversion theory supports the compromise effect by manipulating the psychological proximity of contextual data (excited vs. calm) to mental representational clarity (EL size) based on the context effect theory. The results showed that the smaller the gap in psychological expectancy loss, the more pronounced the compromise effect was. Excited situation data weakened the compromise effect in groups with a greater gap in psychological expectancy loss, while the compromise effect was more obvious in groups with a larger gap in psychological expectation loss. Calm situation data enhanced the compromise effect in groups with a larger loss in psychological expectancy and weakened the compromise effect.