Positive Contrast Scope Insensitivity

Guy Voichek                                                Nathan Novemsky   

Imagine you’re looking at two new smartphones side by side. One has a camera that’s just a bit sharper than the other. Or perhaps one’s battery lasts many hours longer. In both cases, one phone is better — but will you appreciate that advantage differently if it’s small versus big?

Our new research explores exactly these kinds of comparisons. It might seem reasonable to believe that big differences will matter more than small ones; a huge jump in resolution or a significantly stronger battery should make the better product much more attractive and the worse product much less attractive.

Interestingly, we find that this isn’t always the case. When looking at the worse product, people do scale their judgments. The bigger the gap, the less appealing the inferior option becomes. For example, a phone becomes much less attractive if it stands next to a phone with much sharper resolution, but only slightly less attractive if it stands next to a phone with just a few more pixels. But when people focus on the better product, the story changes. Whether the advantage is modest or massive, their enthusiasm stays about the same.

Why does this happen? We show that people pay closer attention when looking at the worse product. Confronted with an inferior option, they want to know how much worse it is. That means they process the size of the disadvantage carefully, and their impressions of that product become more negative as the gap grows.

But when they look at the superior option, people often don’t take that extra mental step. Once they recognize that it’s ahead, they tend to stop there. Even a small edge is enough to trigger positive evaluations; the winner feels like the winner regardless of whether it’s just a hair better or leaps and bounds ahead.

That’s why a new iPhone with a slightly better camera than your phone can feel so attractive despite a trivial real-world advantage. It also means that websites that show side-by-side comparisons, like rtings.com or Amazon’s “compare with similar items” panels, can make a product look much more desirable simply by putting it next to one that’s marginally worse.

There’s an important practical takeaway for companies. Brands hoping to stand out may not need to make massive, costly improvements to outsell their competitors. Even a minor upgrade can make their product look so much better. On the other hand, if they want to highlight a truly big leap forward, they need to do more than just place the new version next to an outdated one and assume that people will appreciate the size of the gap. They may need to draw attention to the size of that gap directly, or otherwise customers might not register just how much better the new product is.

For consumers, our findings are a reminder that when they catch themselves feeling more attracted to one option just because it’s better, it’s worth pausing to ask, “Better, sure — but by how much?” Taking a moment to do that mental math can help you make a more balanced, informed choice, especially when the differences between your options are small.

Read full paper:

Guy Voichek, Nathan Novemsky, Positive Contrast Scope Insensitivity, Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 52, Issue 1, June 2025, Pages 157–178.