Trade-Off Aversion as an Explanation for the Attraction Effect: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Vol. XLVI (February 2009), 1–13 1 © 2009, American Marketing Association ISSN: 0022-2437 (print), 1547-7193 (electronic) *William Hedgcock is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa (e-mail: William-hedgcock@ uiowa.edu). Akshay R. Rao holds the General Mills Chair in Marketing and Director of the Institute for Research in Marketing, Department of Marketing & Logistics Management, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota (e-mail: [email protected]). The assistance of Lane Beckes, Vaughn Steele, and Kristen Haut with data collection is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are also indebted to Terry Childers, Shawn Curley, Deborah Roedder John, Hilke Plassmann, Kathleen Vohs, Bob Wyer, Rami Zwick, and the JMR review team for their comments on a previous version of this manuscript. The second author gratefully acknowledges the hospitality of the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology’s Marketing Department for hosting him while he was on sabbatical, during which time this article was completed. This research was funded in part by a National Science Foundation grant (No. SES-0647647) and by National Institutes of Health grants (No. P41 RR008079 and No. P30 NS057091). It is based on the first essay of the first author’s dissertation, which was written under the supervision of the second author. Chris Janiszewski served as associate editor for this article. WILLIAM HEDGCOCK and AKSHAY R. RAO*