The Evaluability Hypothesis

Hsee, C. K. (1996). The Evaluability Hypothesis: An Explanation for Preference Reversals between Joint and Separate Evaluations of Alternatives. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67(3), 247-257.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

1996

Volume

67

Issue

3

Pages

247-257

DOI

10.1006/obhd.1996.0077

DOI registrant

Elsevier

Link

https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1996.0077

Cited from

cognitive_science

Cited by

3 citations across 3 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Joint vs. Separate Evaluation
  • Software procurement: feature matrices that put products in columns produce different rankings than separate demo walkthroughs, because matrices activate "is this more of attribute A?" while demos activate "is this good?".

    This sourceEstablishes that joint evaluation makes hard-to-evaluate attributes (e.g., comparative specs) evaluable while separate evaluation leans on easy attributes — the mechanism behind feature-matrix-versus-demo differences in multi-attribute product (e.g., software procurement) choice.

Domain-specific

• Scope Neglect
  • Two finer commitments make it precise. Embedding: willingness to pay for a part (one region's lakes) is close to that for a superset (all the country's lakes), since both summon the same prototype — so valuations cannot be additive in scope. Evaluability: scope becomes usable only when magnitude is presented in comparable form, where the larger number does decision-relevant work; in single evaluation scope is nearly inert, in joint evaluation sensitivity partly returns

    SupportedVerified against the source

    Read by an automated reader; not a human review. How support was checked

Mechanisms

• Shared-Burden Comparison Table
  • Its strength is that it enforces the archetype's core symmetry: options are evaluated jointly on shared dimensions rather than one-at-a-time, which is what stops a concrete option from being unfairly outscored by an abstract one — the classic gain from joint over separate evaluation.

    This sourceShows how joint, side-by-side evaluation can change judgments by making otherwise hard-to-evaluate attributes comparable.

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