How durable are compromise effects?

The compromise effect, according to which consumers tend to prefer options positioned as a compromise in a given set of extreme options, ranks among the most prominent context effects in marketing research. Tying in with the recent debate on the robustness of the effect, this research shows that the effect is robust in terms of durable goods when using real branded products, including real payments, the possibility of a pre-choice evaluation, and no-buy options. The results of a comparative analysis based on previous studies' effect sizes suggest that, compared to decisions on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), the amount of cognitive effort spent on decisions regarding durables fosters the compromise effect. A second study supports this notion by showing that, regarding choices between durables, the compromise effect diminishes under a serotonin-deficiency-induced cognitive impairment, but its decrease is not as pronounced as with FMCG.