[2] Further, the order of such queries is dependent on the structure of the choice situation or task, and can influence retrieval of information, leading to different decisions.
Query theory was initially developed by Eric J. Johnson, Gerald Häubl, and Anat Keinan[3] as an attempt to explain the endowment effect.
A view from Query Theory, however, argues that this difference is not based in ownership, but in the thought processes involved in constructing the price judgment.
When order is manipulated by specifically requesting the individual to focus first on a non-default query (e.g., sellers asked to think first about negatives of the purchase), the endowment effect is minimized or absent altogether.
A statistical method used for analyzing the tendency of an individual to produce value-increasing aspects before value-decreasing is the standardized median rank difference (SMRD).
Since its first publication, subsequent work has extended query theory to intertemporal choice,[4] preference construction in groups,[5] and its relationships to evaluation of sequences[6] and consumer decision making[7][8] have been discussed.