Decoy effect

Now suppose that a new player, C, the "decoy", is added to the market; it is more expensive than both A, the "target", and B, the "competitor", and has more storage than B but less than A: The addition of decoy C — which consumers would presumably avoid, given that a lower price can be paid for a model with more storage—causes A, the dominating option, to be chosen more often than if only the two choices in Consideration Set 1 existed; C affects consumer preferences by acting as a basis of comparison for A and B.

Another example shown in Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational was a true case used by The Economist magazine.

[5] Some research suggests that the attraction effect does not appear in realistic purchasing scenarios, for example when options are presented graphically, or when the target and the competitor are not exactly of the same value.

[6][7][5] The original authors had to underline again that the attraction effect occurs only if the consumer is close to indifference between the target and the competitor, if both dimensions of the products (in our example, price and storage capacity) are about as important as each other to the consumer, if the decoy is not too undesirable, and if the dominance relation is easy to identify.

[8] A recent study has indeed confirmed that the attraction effect persists when options are presented graphically, i.e., as scatter plots.