IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pab/wpaper/06.18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A New Type of Preference Reversal

Author

Listed:
  • Han Bleichrodt

    (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)

  • Jose Luis Pinto-Prades

    (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide)

Abstract

The classic preference reversal phenomenon arises in a comparison between a choice and a matching task. We present a new type of preference reversal which is entirely choice-based. Because choice is the basic primitive of economics, the preference reversal we observe is more troubling for economics. The preference reversal was observed in two experiments, both involving large representative samples from the Spanish population. The data were collected by professional interviewers in face-to-face interviews. Possible explanations for the preference reversal are the anticipation of disappointment and elation in risky choice and the impact of ethical considerations.

Suggested Citation

  • Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto-Prades, 2006. "A New Type of Preference Reversal," Working Papers 06.18, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:pab:wpaper:06.18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.upo.es/serv/bib/wps/econ0618.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2006
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Poterba, James M & Venti, Steven F & Wise, David A, 1998. "401(k) Plans and Future Patterns of Retirement Saving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 179-184, May.
    2. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2000. "Pay Enough or Don't Pay at All," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 791-810.
    3. John Quiggin, 1990. "Stochastic Dominance in Regret Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 503-511.
    4. Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 1997. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 746-755, September.
    5. Leslie A. Lenert & Cathy D. Sherbourne & Valerie Reyna, 2001. "Utility Elicitation Using Single-Item Questions Compared with a Computerized Interview," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 21(2), pages 97-104, April.
    6. Lena Lundberg & Magnus Johannesson & Dag G.L. Isacson & Lars Borgquist, 1999. "The Relationship between Health-state Utilities and the SF-12 in a General Population," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 19(2), pages 128-140, April.
    7. Handa, Jagdish, 1977. "Risk, Probabilities, and a New Theory of Cardinal Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(1), pages 97-122, February.
    8. Tversky, Amos & Slovic, Paul & Kahneman, Daniel, 1990. "The Causes of Preference Reversal," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 204-217, March.
    9. Fishburn, Peter C, 1978. "On Handa's "New Theory of Cardinal Utility" and the Maximization of Expected Return," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(2), pages 321-324, April.
    10. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Chris Starmer, 2000. "Developments in Non-expected Utility Theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 332-382, June.
    12. Birnbaum, Michael H. & Sutton, Sara E., 1992. "Scale convergence and utility measurement," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 183-215, July.
    13. Pommerehne, Werner W & Schneider, Friedrich & Zweifel, Peter, 1982. "Economic Theory of Choice and the Preference Reversal Phenomenon: A Reexamination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 569-574, June.
    14. Enrico Diecidue & Ulrich Schmidt & Peter P. Wakker, 2004. "The Utility of Gambling Reconsidered," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 241-259, December.
    15. Robin P. Cubitt & Alistair Munro & Chris Starmer, 2004. "Testing explanations of preference reversal," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 709-726, July.
    16. Mellers, Barbara & Weiss, Robin & Birnbaum, Michael, 1992. "Violations of Dominance in Pricing Judgments," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 73-90, February.
    17. Grether, David M & Plott, Charles R, 1979. "Economic Theory of Choice and the Preference Reversal Phenomenon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 623-638, September.
    18. Jonathan W. Leland, 1998. "Similarity Judgments in Choice Under Uncertainty: A Reinterpretation of the Predictions of Regret Theory," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(5), pages 659-672, May.
    19. Birnbaum, Michael H & Navarrete, Juan B, 1998. "Testing Descriptive Utility Theories: Violations of Stochastic Dominance and Cumulative Independence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 49-78, October.
    20. repec:bla:econom:v:59:y:1992:i:233:p:17-33 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1986. "Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 251-278, October.
    22. Grether, David M & Plott, Charles R, 1982. "Economic Theory of Choice and the Preference Reversal Phenomenon: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 575-575, June.
    23. Graham Loomes & Robert Sugden, 1986. "Disappointment and Dynamic Consistency in Choice under Uncertainty," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(2), pages 271-282.
    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. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto Prades, 2009. "New evidence of preference reversals in health utility measurement," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(6), pages 713-726, June.
    2. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto-Prades, 2007. "A new preference reversal in health utility measurement," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2007/15, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    3. Uri Gneezy & John A. List & George Wu, 2006. "The Uncertainty Effect: When a Risky Prospect is Valued Less than its Worst Possible Outcome," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1283-1309.
    4. Thomas Kourouxous & Thomas Bauer, 2019. "Violations of dominance in decision-making," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 12(1), pages 209-239, April.
    5. Birnbaum, Michael H., 2004. "Tests of rank-dependent utility and cumulative prospect theory in gambles represented by natural frequencies: Effects of format, event framing, and branch splitting," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 40-65, September.
    6. Marc Willinger, 1990. "La rénovation des fondements de l'utilité et du risque," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 41(1), pages 5-48.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i:7:p:528-546 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Pavlo Blavatskyy, 2018. "A second-generation disappointment aversion theory of decision making under risk," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(1), pages 29-60, January.
    9. Michael H. Birnbaum & Kathleen Johnson & Jay-Lee Longbottom, 2008. "Tests of Cumulative Prospect Theory with graphical displays of probability," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 3(7), pages 528-546, October.
    10. Michael Birnbaum, 2005. "A Comparison of Five Models that Predict Violations of First-Order Stochastic Dominance in Risky Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 263-287, December.
    11. Ozlem Ozdemir & Andrea Morone, 2014. "An experimental investigation of insurance decisions in low probability and high loss risk situations," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 9(1), pages 53-67, April.
    12. Ulrich Schmidt & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2008. "Third-generation prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 203-223, June.
    13. Han Bleichrodt & Peter P. Wakker, 2015. "Regret Theory: A Bold Alternative to the Alternatives," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(583), pages 493-532, March.
    14. Birnbaum, Michael H. & Patton, Jamie N. & Lott, Melissa K., 1999. "Evidence against Rank-Dependent Utility Theories: Tests of Cumulative Independence, Interval Independence, Stochastic Dominance, and Transitivity, , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 44-83, January.
    15. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson & David Schmeidler, 2019. "What are axiomatizations good for?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 86(3), pages 339-359, May.
    16. Berg, Joyce E. & Dickhaut, John W. & Rietz, Thomas A., 2010. "Preference reversals: The impact of truth-revealing monetary incentives," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 443-468, March.
    17. Michael H. Birnbaum & Daniel Navarro-Martinez & Christoph Ungemach & Neil Stewart & Edika G. Quispe-Torreblanca, 2016. "Risky Decision making: Testing for violations of transitivity predicted by an editing mechanism," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 11(1), pages 75-91, January.
    18. Jonathan W. Leland & Mark Schneider, 2016. "Salience, Framing, and Decisions under Risk, Uncertainty, and Time," Working Papers 16-08, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    19. Yoram Amiel & Frank Cowell & Liema Davidovitz & Avraham Polovin, 2008. "Preference reversals and the analysis of income distributions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(2), pages 305-330, February.
    20. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:6:p:1324-1369 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Michael Birnbaum & Ulrich Schmidt, 2008. "An experimental investigation of violations of transitivity in choice under uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 77-91, August.
    22. Adrian Bruhin & Maha Manai & Luís Santos-Pinto, 2022. "Risk and rationality: The relative importance of probability weighting and choice set dependence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 139-184, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Preference reversal; Choice behavior; Stochastic dominance; Disappointment and elation; Health;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    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:pab:wpaper:06.18. 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: Publicación Digital - UPO (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupoes.html .

    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.