Reich Nir, Azar Ofer H
Department of Business Administration, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Mar 14;15(3):369. doi: 10.3390/bs15030369.
Traditional economic theory suggests that when consumers decide whether to exert effort and travel to a remote store that is cheaper, the decision should compare the time and effort of travelling the relevant distance to the money that can be saved. Our research examined whether the unit of distance measurement, meters or miles, affects the actual distance an individual is willing to travel to save a certain amount of money. We studied the cases of both walking and driving to the remote store. We found in both cases that participants were willing to travel a greater distance for the same amount saved when they answered in miles. This supports our hypothesis, grounded in the literature on heuristics and biases, that the nominal value (which is smaller in miles) affects decisions even though it should be irrelevant from a rational perspective. We denote this behavior as the Measurement-Unit Bias. These findings have important implications for consumer behavior and marketing strategies.
传统经济理论认为，当消费者决定是否付出努力前往一家更便宜的偏远商店时，该决策应将前往相应距离所需的时间和努力与能够节省的金钱进行比较。我们的研究考察了距离测量单位（米或英里）是否会影响个人为节省一定金额而愿意前往的实际距离。我们研究了步行和开车前往偏远商店这两种情况。我们发现在这两种情况下，当参与者以英里作答时，为了节省相同金额他们愿意前往更远的距离。这支持了我们基于启发式和偏差文献的假设，即名义价值（以英里为单位时较小）即使从理性角度来看应该无关紧要，却仍会影响决策。我们将这种行为称为测量单位偏差。这些发现对消费者行为和营销策略具有重要意义。
