Choice-induced preference change may be the result of fluctuating attention to attributes

The phenomenon known as choice-induced preference change, where decision makers tend to rate options higher after they choose them and lower after they reject them (and often choose the option that they had initially rated lower) has been well-documented for many decades, and the principal findings are robust. Yet the source of the phenomenon remains poorly understood. The key measure is the spreading of alternatives (SoA) in terms of their subjective value ratings, where options that were initially rated closer together are later rated further apart. In this study, we reexamine previous findings related to SoA and probe the data for deeper insights. We report a variety of results suggesting that the relationships between choices and SoA might be driven by evaluations of individual attributes. More interestingly, our results suggest that the influence of the attributes might differ early in choice deliberation versus late and also depending on which attributes were more recently the focus of attention. Together, our results support the idea that attention to specific attributes fluctuates across task and across deliberation time, resulting in post-choice ratings that differ from pre-choice ratings in a systematic manner.