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A model of non-informational preference change

Franz Dietrich and Christian List
Additional contact information
Christian List: London School of Economics, UK, c.list@lse.ac.uk

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2011, vol. 23, issue 2, 145-164

Abstract: According to standard rational choice theory, as commonly used in political science and economics, an agent’s fundamental preferences are exogenously fixed, and any preference change over decision options is due to Bayesian information learning. Although elegant and parsimonious, such a model fails to account for preference change driven by experiences or psychological changes distinct from information learning. We develop a model of non-informational preference change. Alternatives are modelled as points in some multidimensional space, only some of whose dimensions play a role in shaping the agent’s preferences. Any change in these ‘motivationally salient’ dimensions can change the agent’s preferences. How it does so is described by a new representation theorem. Our model not only captures a wide range of frequently observed phenomena, but also generalizes some standard representations of preferences in political science and economics.

Keywords: bounded rationality; choice under uncertainty; dynamic inconsistency; multiple- criteria decision making; preference change; preference formation; representation theorem; salience; spatial voting theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629810394700 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: A model of non-informational preference change (2011)
Working Paper: A model of non-informational preference change (2011)
Working Paper: A model of non-informational preference change (2011)
Working Paper: A Model of Non-Informational Preference Change (2009) Downloads
Working Paper: A model of non-informational preference change (2009) Downloads
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:23:y:2011:i:2:p:145-164

DOI: 10.1177/0951629810394700

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