Behavioral variability of choices versus structural inconsistency of preferences.

ABSTRACT: Theories of rational choice often make the structural consistency assumption that every decision maker's binary strict preference among choice alternatives forms a strict weak order. Likewise, the very concept of a utility function over lotteries in normative, prescriptive, and descriptive theory is mathematically equivalent to strict weak order preferences over those lotteries, while intransitive heuristic models violate such weak orders. Using new quantitative interdisciplinary methodologies, we dissociate the variability of choices from the structural inconsistency of preferences. We show that laboratory choice behavior among stimuli of a classical "intransitivity" paradigm is, in fact, consistent with variable strict weak order preferences. We find that decision makers act in accordanc

SUBMITTER: Regenwetter M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3338203 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature