Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion · chapter 1 · id influence-c1-05-real-estate-agents-deliberatel

“Real estate agents deliberately show overpriced, run-down properties ('setup' houses) before showing target properties, exploiting the contrast principle to make ordinary homes look exceptional.”

needs contextconfidence: medium⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending

Receipts

Selling and Persuasion Techniques -- Contrast Principle in Salessource alive

Real estate companies maintain a house or two on their lists at inflated prices, not intending them to be sold but to be shown first, so genuine properties benefit from the comparison.

Simonson & Tversky (1992), Choice in Context: Tradeoff Contrast and Extremeness Aversion, Journal of Marketing Research 29(3)FLAGGED: DOI not in registry

The addition of an asymmetrically dominated alternative can increase the choice probability of the dominating option -- the decoy effect demonstrates how inferior options shift preferences toward target alternatives.

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