¹Kainan University, Taoyuan, Taiwan

Correspondence: J-J Huang, No. 1, Kainan Road, Luzhu Shiang, Taoyuan 33857, Taiwan. E-mail: jjhuang@mail.knu.edu.tw

Received June 2007; Accepted April 2008; Published online 27 August 2008.

Abstract

Behavioural models suggest that the value of an alternative is determined by the combination of the context-free effects and the context-dependent effects. The former refer to the absolute position of the choice set and are independent of the context frame or other alternatives. On the other hand, the latter are measured by the relative position of other alternatives and may be influenced by the context effects. Although many behavioural models have been proposed based on prospect theory and the componential context model to capture consumer choice behaviour, they predict inconsistent results in some situations. In this paper, five experiments are used to show the inconsistency between the above two models. Then, two revised behavioural models are proposed to modify prospect theory and the componential context model for releasing that inconsistency.