IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nav/ecupna/1208.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Theory of Choice under Internal Conflict

Author

Abstract

In this paper we argue, inspired by some psychological literature, that choices are the outcome of the interplay of diff erent, potentially conflicting motivations. We propose an axiomatic approach with two motivations, which we assume to be single-peaked over a certain given dimension. We first consider the case in which motivations are given and stable, and then introduce the possibility for motivations to change. We show first that in the no-motivation change case, certain choice behaviours that appear to be inconsistent from the standard rational choice point of view may be explained in our framework as the outcome of conflicting motivations. Afterwards, in the case of motivation change, we present two psychologically-flavoured assumptions about how motivations are influenced by choices. We show that, with some additional weak assumptions of rationality, motivation change leads to a smaller range of potentially inconsistent choices and not to a larger one as one may think. In particular, conflicts between two motivations can eventually be resolved by choosing di fferent actions and consequently a definite and final preference for an action be revealed.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritxar Arlegi & Miriam Teschl, 2012. "A Theory of Choice under Internal Conflict," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 1208, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra.
  • Handle: RePEc:nav:ecupna:1208
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.unavarra.es/gesadj/depEconomia/repec/DocumentosTrab/DT1208.PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Sugden, 2004. "The Opportunity Criterion: Consumer Sovereignty Without the Assumption of Coherent Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1014-1033, September.
    2. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    4. Gil Kalai & Ariel Rubinstein & Ran Spiegler, 2002. "Rationalizing Choice Functions By Multiple Rationales," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2481-2488, November.
    5. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    6. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    7. Cherry, Todd L. & Crocker, Thomas D. & Shogren, Jason F., 2003. "Rationality spillovers," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 63-84, January.
    8. Amartya K. Sen, 1971. "Choice Functions and Revealed Preference," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(3), pages 307-317.
    9. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    10. Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    11. H. Moulin, 1980. "On strategy-proofness and single peakedness," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 437-455, January.
    12. Nick Baigent, 1995. "Behind The Veil Of Preference," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 88-101, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    2. Geoffroy de Clippel, 2014. "Behavioral Implementation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 2975-3002, October.
    3. Walter Bossert & Yves Sprumont, 2009. "Non‐Deteriorating Choice," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(302), pages 337-363, April.
    4. Bogliacino, Francesco & Codagnone, Cristiano, 2021. "Microfoundations, behaviour, and evolution: Evidence from experiments," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 372-385.
    5. Antoine Billot & Chantal Marlats, 2009. "Préferences psychologiques et nouvelle économie politique," Working Papers halshs-00566146, HAL.
    6. Drakopoulos, Stavros A., 2022. "The Conceptual Resilience of the Atomistic Individual in Mainstream Economic Rationality," MPRA Paper 112944, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Đula, Ivan & Größler, Andreas, 2021. "Inequity aversion in dynamically complex supply chains," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(1), pages 309-322.
    8. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    9. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    10. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2022. "Fairness-based Altruism," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 666, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    11. Ghosal, Sayantan & Dalton, Patricio, 2013. "Characterizing Behavioral Decisions with Choice Data," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 107, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    12. Christoph Engel & Paul A. M. Van Lange, 2021. "Social mindfulness is normative when costs are low, but rapidly declines with increases in costs," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(2), pages 290-322, March.
    13. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    14. Antonio Cabrales, 2010. "The causes and economic consequences of envy," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 371-386, September.
    15. Holden, Stein T. & Tilahun, Mesfin, 2019. "How Do Social Preferences and Norms of Reciprocity affect Generalized and Particularized Trust?," CLTS Working Papers 8/19, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Centre for Land Tenure Studies, revised 10 Oct 2019.
    16. Clark, Andrew E. & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2014. "Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 8136, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Klaus M. Schmidt & Martin Spann & Robert Zeithammer, 2015. "Pay What You Want as a Marketing Strategy in Monopolistic and Competitive Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1217-1236, June.
    18. Rebitzer, James B. & Taylor, Lowell J., 2011. "Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 8, pages 701-772, Elsevier.
    19. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:2:p:290-322 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Brice Corgnet & Brian Gunia & Roberto Hernán González, 2021. "Harnessing the power of social incentives to curb shirking in teams," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 139-167, February.
    21. Bodo Sturm & Joachim Weimann, 2006. "Experiments in Environmental Economics and Some Close Relatives," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 419-457, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Motivation; Pleasure; Self-Image; Conflict; Preference Reversal; Dissonance reduction.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nav:ecupna:1208. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Javier Puértolas (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.unavarra.es/departamento-economia .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.