Decision Structuring with Phantom Alternatives

A phantom alternative is an illusory choice option—it looks real but for some reason is unavailable at the time a decision is made. Phantoms can both help and hinder successful decision making. On the one hand, phantoms can provide useful information on the boundaries of a decision problem and thus help generate new options through a restructuring of the problem. But phantoms can also produce biases, deception, and suboptimal decisions.

We argue that phantoms should be considered explicitly in decision structuring rather than being allowed to work their effects surreptitiously. We offer guidelines on recognizing unavailable alternatives, utilizing the information provided by phantoms, counteracting phantom biases, avoiding deception in decision structuring, and guarding against suboptimal decisions.