Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Vol. 82, No. 2, July, pp. 293–313, 2000
doi:10.1006/obhd.2000.2899, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on
Acceptance and Elimination Procedures in
Choice: Noncomplementarity and the
Role of Implied Status quo
Ilan Yaniv and Yaacov Schul
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
The present research contrasts two seemingly complementary
decision strategies: acceptance and elimination. In acceptance,
a choice set is created by including suitable alternatives from an
initial set of alternatives, whereas in elimination it is created by
removing inappropriate alternatives from that same initial set.
Theresearchusedrealisticcareerdecision-makingscenariosand
presented to respondents sets of alternatives that varied in their
preexperimental strength values. Whereas complementarity of
acceptance and elimination is implied by three standard (norma-
tive)assumptions of decisiontheory,wefind a systematicdiscrep-
ancy between the outcomes of these procedures: choice sets were
larger in elimination than in acceptance. This acceptance–
elimination discrepancy is directly tied to subcomplementarity.
The central tenet of the theoretical framework developed here
is that acceptance and elimination procedures imply different
types of status quo for the alternatives, thereby invoking a differ-
ent selection criterionfor each procedure.A central predictionof
thedual-criterionframeworkisthatmiddlingalternativesshould
be most susceptible to the type of procedure used. The present
studies focus on this prediction which is substantiated by the
results showing that middling alternatives yield the greatest dis-
crepancy between acceptance and elimination. The implications
of this model and findings for various research domains are dis-
cussed.
᭧ 2000 Academic Press
The research was supported by a grant from the Israel Foundations Trustees (1998–2000) to
both authors. We thank Prof. Itamar Gati for advice and for making his databases, questionnaires,
and software available to us for constructing our research materials.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Ilan Yaniv or Yaacov Schul, Department of
Psychology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, 91905, E-mail: ilan.yaniv@mscc.huji.ac.il,
yaacov.schul@mscc.huji.ac.il.
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Copyright ᭧ 2000 by Academic Press
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