Expected Utility and Cognitive Consistency

Louis Lévy-Garboua

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: One may reason before making a decision on perceiving potential objections to expected utility-preference. Cognitive consistency is attained by making full use of available information, i.e. consistent preference and reasons. I show that coincidence between the rational choice and the normative preference requires perfect consciousness, and I provide maximizing rules of decision conditional on preference which are valid with imperfect consciousness. A necessary and sufficient condition for expected utility to be descriptively valid is given. Under risk, the rational choice converges towards expected utility through unconscious learning. Many well-known paradoxes and anomalies of choice, evaluation and information are solved for well-behaved preferences.

Keywords: doubt; cognitive consistency; reasons; information; consciousness; objection dependent expected utility; doute; cohérence cognitive; raisons; conscience; espérance d'utilité dépendante de l'objection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-12
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03674666
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Published in 1999

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Related works:
Working Paper: Expected Utility and Cognitive Consistency (1999)
Working Paper: Expected Utility and Cognitive Consistency (1999)
Working Paper: Expected utility and cognitive consistency (1999)
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