Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion · chapter 1 · id influence-c1-05-real-estate-agents-deliberatel
“Real estate agents deliberately show overpriced, run-down properties ('setup' houses) before showing target properties, exploiting the contrast principle to make ordinary homes look exceptional.”
TRUE, BUTconfidence: medium⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending
Receipts
Selling and Persuasion Techniques -- Contrast Principle in Salessource alive
Real estate companies maintain a house or two on their lists at inflated prices, not intending them to be sold but to be shown first, so genuine properties benefit from the comparison.
Simonson & Tversky (1992), Choice in Context: Tradeoff Contrast and Extremeness Aversion, Journal of Marketing Research 29(3)FLAGGED: DOI not in registry
The addition of an asymmetrically dominated alternative can increase the choice probability of the dominating option -- the decoy effect demonstrates how inferior options shift preferences toward target alternatives.
This claim is a stable, citable object. If you can falsify a verdict, tell us. Corrections are loud here.