When people read that the chairman agrees to harm the environment, they conceptualize the harmful side effect as a cost — something negatively valued that must be incurred to reap a greater benefit

The trade-off model (Machery 2008) disagrees with the previous models about the location of the source of the asymmetry: it locates it in the interpretation of the scenario. It proposes that when people read that the chairman agrees to harm the environment, they conceptualize the side effect harming the environment as a cost, that is, as something that is negatively valued and that one must incur if one is to reap a greater benefit. People think of this cost as being offset by the benefit increa