The Measurement-Unit Bias: People Walk or Drive Less to Save a Constant Money Amount When Answering in Meters Compared to Miles
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Working Hypothesis
3. Experiment: Travel Distance for a Predefined Saving in a Cheaper Store
3.1. Materials and Methods
3.2. Results and Discussion
4. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A. Analyzing Possible Order Effects
(1–Walking Scenario) | (2–Driving Scenario) | |
Dependent variable | Distance Walking | Distance Driving |
Independent variables | ||
Meter-version | −1908.02 *** (p = 0.000) | −7581.28 *** (p = 0.001) |
Walking-first | 583.09 (p = 0.177) | 1306.13 (p = 0.559) |
Walking-first X Meter-version | 19.11 (p = 0.975) | 2862.09 (p = 0.368) |
Constant | 2903.81 *** (p = 0.000) | 10,495.7 *** (p = 0.000) |
N | 99 | 99 |
0.3142 | 0.1667 | |
F | 14.51 | 6.34 |
Prob > F | 0.000 | 0.001 |
Comments: p-values are reported in parentheses. *** designates statistically significant at the 0.001 level. Meter-version is a dummy variable that equals 0 in the miles treatment and 1 in the meters treatment. Walking-first is a dummy variable that equals 0 if the driving scenario was presented first and 1 if the walking scenario was presented first. Walking-first X Meter-version is the interaction between these two dummy variables. |
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Observations | Rank Sum | Expected | |
---|---|---|---|
Miles | 50 | 3395 | 2500 |
Meters | 49 | 1555 | 2450 |
Combined | 99 | 4950 | 4950 |
Observations | Rank Sum | Expected | |
---|---|---|---|
Miles | 50 | 3235.5 | 2500 |
Meters | 49 | 1714.5 | 2450 |
Combined | 99 | 4950 | 4950 |
(1—Walking Scenario) | (2—Driving Scenario) | |
---|---|---|
Dependent variable | Distance Walking | Distance Driving |
Independent variables | ||
Meter-version | −1915.64 *** (p = 0.000) | −6159.95 *** (p = 0.000) |
Constant | 3218.68 *** (p = 0.000) | 11,201.01 *** (p = 0.000) |
N | 99 | 99 |
0.287 | 0.134 | |
F | 39.01 | 14.94 |
Prob > F | 0.000 | 0.000 |
(1—Walking Scenario) | (2—Driving Scenario) | (1—Walking Scenario) | (2—Driving Scenario) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Dependent variable | Distance Walking | Distance Driving | Distance Walking | Distance Driving |
Independent variables | ||||
Meter-version | −1877.35 *** (p = 0.000) | −6085.41 *** (p = 0.000) | −2374.70 * (p = 0.045) | −7903.54 (p = 0.203) |
Female | −492.00 (p = 0.113) | −798.72 (p = 0.622) | −311.06 (p = 0.476) | 167.18 (p = 0.942) |
Female × Meter-version | −326.68 (p = 0.601) | −1796.81 (p = 0.585) | ||
Age | 2.88 (p = 0.810) | 16.00 (p = 0.800) | −5.40 (p = 0.752) | −19.22 (p = 0.831) |
Age × Meter-version | 15.26 (p = 0.531) | 63.09 (p = 0.622) | ||
constant | 3336.39 *** (p = 0.000) | 10,888.49 *** (p = 0.001) | 3614.53 *** (p = 0.000) | 11,972.23 ** (p = 0.006) |
N | 99 | 99 | 99 | 99 |
0.306 | 0.136 | 0.3113 | 0.1415 | |
F | 13.97 | 5.00 | 8.41 | 3.07 |
Prob > F | 0.000 | 0.003 | 0.000 | 0.013 |
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Reich, N.; Azar, O.H. The Measurement-Unit Bias: People Walk or Drive Less to Save a Constant Money Amount When Answering in Meters Compared to Miles. Behav. Sci. 2025, 15, 369. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15030369
Reich N, Azar OH. The Measurement-Unit Bias: People Walk or Drive Less to Save a Constant Money Amount When Answering in Meters Compared to Miles. Behavioral Sciences. 2025; 15(3):369. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15030369
Chicago/Turabian StyleReich, Nir, and Ofer H. Azar. 2025. "The Measurement-Unit Bias: People Walk or Drive Less to Save a Constant Money Amount When Answering in Meters Compared to Miles" Behavioral Sciences 15, no. 3: 369. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15030369
APA StyleReich, N., & Azar, O. H. (2025). The Measurement-Unit Bias: People Walk or Drive Less to Save a Constant Money Amount When Answering in Meters Compared to Miles. Behavioral Sciences, 15(3), 369. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15030369