Hypothetical Purchase Task Questionnaire - HPT

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 02, 2018

Last Modified: January 17, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements a computerized Hypothetical Purchase Task Questionnaire based on:

Roma, P. G., Hursh, S. R., and Hudja, S. (2016). Hypothetical Purchase Task Questionnaires for Behavioral Economic Assessments of Value and Motivation. Manage. Decis. Econ., 37: 306–323. doi: 10.1002/mde.2718.

Duration

2 minutes

Overview

Participants are asked to answer how many items of a certain commodity (here as example: burgers/sandwiches)
they would buy at 9 different price points during a particular time frame (here: one month).
The 9 different price points start at 0 and end at 100 times the anchor price (which is also the median
of the 9 price points).

Instructions

see section Editable Instructions.
To change commodity, change instructions and image under section Editable Instructions

Summary Data

File Name: hpt_summary.iqdat' (Inquisit Lab: one data file per participant)

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
Parameter Values
targetCommodity The target commodity (here: "burger/sandwich")
priceDensity The price density (low, medium, high) of the commodity in question (here: medium for burgers)
medianAnchorPrice The anchor price of the commodity in question (here: $5.00 for a burger/sandwich)
timeFrame The time frame (default: "1 month")
v1 The minimum price point (free)
textbox.v1.response1 The entered number of hypothetical burgers bought at this price point
...
v5 The median price point (the anchor)
textbox.v5.response The entered number of hypothetical burgers bought at this price point
...
v9 The maximum price point (100 times the anchor value)
textbox.v9.response The entered number of hypothetical burgers bought at this price point

Raw Data

File Name: hpt.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject, group, session With the current subject/groupnumber/session id
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values)
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this particular
question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
targetCommodity The target commodity (here: "burger/sandwich")
priceDensity The price density (low, medium, high) of the commodity in question (here: medium for burgers)
medianAnchorPrice The anchor price of the commodity in question in $ (here: $5.00 for a burger/sandwich)
timeFrame The time frame "1 month"