Preference Reversal: Information-Processing Effect or Rational Non-transitive Choice?

Graham Loomes (), Chris Starmer and Robert Sugden

Economic Journal, 1989, vol. 99, issue 395, 140-51

Abstract: Preference reversal is often explained as an information-processing effect, whereby individuals respond differently to valuation problems than to straight choices. Regret theory offers the alternative explanation that individuals act on consistent, but nontransitive, preferences. Regret theory, in its most general form, is shown to make specific predictions about nontransitive pairwise choices that correspond with the preferences reversal phenomenon. Some experiments designed to discriminate between these two explanations are reported. The main finding is that, as regret theory predicts, the preference reversal phenomenon can be reproduced in situations in which subjects confront only choice problems. Copyright 1989 by Royal Economic Society.

Date: 1989
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (47)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0133%2819894 ... 0.CO%3B2-G&origin=bc full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:99:y:1989:i:395:p:140-51

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... al.asp?ref=0013-0133

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is currently edited by Martin Cripps, Steve Machin, Woulter den Haan, Andrea Galeotti, Rachel Griffith and Frederic Vermeulen

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing () and Christopher F. Baum ().