Trust me; I know what I am doing investigating the effect of choice list elicitation and domain-relevant training on preference reversals in decision making for others

Sebastian Neumann-Böhme (), Stefan A. Lipman (), Werner Brouwer and Arthur Attema
Additional contact information
Sebastian Neumann-Böhme: Erasmus University Rotterdam
Stefan A. Lipman: Erasmus University Rotterdam

The European Journal of Health Economics, 2021, vol. 22, issue 5, No 3, 679-697

Abstract: Abstract One core assumption of standard economic theory is that an individual’s preferences are stable, irrespective of the method used to elicit them. This assumption may be violated if preference reversals are observed when comparing different methods to elicit people’s preferences. People may then prefer A over B using one method while preferring B over A using another. Such preference reversals pose a significant problem for theoretical and applied research. We used a sample of medical and economics students to investigate preference reversals in the health and financial domain when choosing patients/clients. We explored whether preference reversals are associated with domain-relevant training and tested whether using guided ‘choice list’ elicitation reduces reversals. Our findings suggest that preference reversals were more likely to occur for medical students, within the health domain, and for open-ended valuation questions. Familiarity with a domain reduced the likelihood of preference reversals in that domain. Although preference reversals occur less frequently within specialist domains, they remain a significant theoretical and practical problem. The use of clearer valuation procedures offers a promising approach to reduce preference reversals.

Keywords: Choice; Decision making for others; Preference elicitation; Preference imprecision; Preference reversals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10198-021-01283-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:eujhec:v:22:y:2021:i:5:d:10.1007_s10198-021-01283-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10198/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10198-021-01283-3

Access Statistics for this article

The European Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J.-M.G.v.d. Schulenburg

More articles in The European Journal of Health Economics from Springer, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().