Hi!
I’m taking an online psych course and it’s covering the concept of just noticeable difference. I wanted to see for myself if the perceived value of a product affects the Just noticeable difference in terms of price. The survey’s only 6 very easy questions and should take 5-6 minutes max
Note: I realize using hypothetical scenarios is not the most effective, but it’s the best I can do. If anyone has suggestions on how to improve the survey, please comment!
I had trouble answering because neither scenario offers information about my options. For example, if my $60/mo gym membership is about the average in my area I’d seek alternatives past a $5 increase. If it’s simply resetting itself to area average cost or just above, I’ll tolerate more change in price for the sake of familiarity.
Too, my workouts are essential to me, but I don’t use a gym. Is the hypothetical that I have no other workout option, e.g. limited space at home? This strongly impacts its importance to me and my willingness to pay more. I’ve tolerated significant increases in the cost of cell service and phones over the years because I’ve had no palatable choice, but I shut cable television off as costs rose because there were viable alternatives.
So… I’ve given up waiting for responses and have decided to end the “study”. Here are the results.
Gym: $22.95 average Massage: $12.81 average
Gym importance: 7.67 average Massage Importance: 2.75 average
Null Hypothesis: Gym average = Massage average
Alternative Hypothesis: Gym Average>Massage average
P- Value: .015- Reject null. Convincing evidence that respondents tolerate greater price increase for gym → higher JND
I used a 2 sample t test for difference in mean. The sample size ended up only being 12, but the distributions didn’t have any outliers or strong skew so I did the test anyways.
Obviously, the “study” was full of holes (hence the quotations). Also, I realized that I was measuring Differential price response threshold (the point at which respondents would react to a change) as opposed to differential price perceptual threshold, so there’s probably a gap between perceived price increase and the point at which the increase is intolerable (ie switching gym/parlour). However, both are JND
Another insight: Price elasticity of products differ based on perceived value.
However, given the huge difference in average perceived difference, I was kind of expecting a larger gap in price tolerance
I’m probably stating the obvious, but it was really cool for me to see this played ou “in the real world”