For all their differences, the two rival theories of human behavior have many unfortunate similarities. Standard rational choice theory posits that individuals use rational techniques to pick ends that meet their set of private preferences. Modern theories of behavioral economics point to systematic deviations from those principles. Both approaches assume that all preferences are individually based. However, the evolutionary principle of inclusive fitness insists that in family situations, it is the welfare of the unit, not of any of single individual, that explains various forms of natural love and affection that arise because of the interdependence of − and the redistribution of − wealth it requires. Likewise, both standard theories ignore variations in tastes and in competence levels that allow for gains from trade across competence levels. This paper then reinterprets the common treatment of nudges and the various legal doctrines dealing with disabilities, product liability, and firm structure where the standard assumptions of uniform behavior miss the salient features of human behavior and social interactions.

Empirical studies of ambiguity aversion mostly use artificial events such as Ellsberg urns to control for unknown probability beliefs. The present study measures ambiguity attitudes using real-world events in a large sample of investors. We elicit ambiguity aversion and perceived ambiguity for a familiar company stock, a local stock index, a foreign stock index, and Bitcoin. Measurement reliability is higher than for artificial sources in previous studies. Ambiguity aversion is highly correlated for different assets, while perceived ambiguity varies more between assets. Further, we show that ambiguity attitudes are related to actual investment choices.

We show how bounds around preferences parameters can be estimated under various levels of assumptions concerning the beliefs of senders in the investment game. We contrast these bounds with point estimates of the preference parameters obtained using non-incentivized subjective belief data. Our point estimates suggest that expected responses and social preferences both play a significant role in determining investment in the game. Moreover, these point estimates fall within our most reasonable bounds. This suggests that credible inferences can be obtained using non-incentivized beliefs.

This paper critically assesses Rizzo and Whitman’s theory of inclusive rationality in light of the ongoing cross-disciplinary debate about rationality, welfare analyses and policy evaluation. The paper aims to provide three main contributions to this debate. First, it explicates the relation between the consistency conditions presupposed by standard axiomatic conceptions of rationality and the standards of rationality presupposed by Rizzo and Whitman’s theory of inclusive rationality. Second, it provides a qualified defence of the consistency conditions presupposed by standard axiomatic conceptions of rationality against the main criticisms put forward by Rizzo and Whitman. And third, it identifies and discusses specific strengths and weaknesses of Rizzo and Whitman’s theory of inclusive rationality in the context of welfare analyses and policy evaluation.

This article surveys the rapidly growing literature that examined the influence of Covid-19 on preferences. Based on 33 studies, the article examines how the pandemic impacted altruism, cooperation, trust, inequity aversion, risk-taking, and patience/time discounting. Even though the survey suggests the effect of the pandemic on preferences is heterogeneous, some noticeable patterns can be observed in the literature. First, in the case of incentivized preference elicitation, there is weak evidence that the pandemic positively influenced altruism and had no significant impact on time preferences or patience. Second, many studies that used balanced panel data and incentivized preference elicitation mechanisms do not find a significant effect of the pandemic on preferences. Last, studies that used unincentivized methods to elicit preferences show relatively higher variability in results when compared to the studies that used incentivized methods for preference elicitation. The organized synthesis and several noticeable patterns can help future research focusing on preference stability during Covid-19 and other unfavorable events.

This article replicates an experiment by Coffman et al. (Manag Sci 67(6):3551–3569, 2021) who separated taste-based and statistical discrimination by comparing employer choices in one of two hiring environments (treatments). Both treatments were characterized by the same ability distributions of workers in tasks on which men are found to outperform women on average, but only one allowed for gender-specific considerations. We found statistical discrimination against women when they are presented to employers not as women, but as people belonging to a low-performance group, but discrimination in their favor when their gender is revealed to potential employers. This discrimination in favor of women was observed in both male and female employers. It was greater when employers were women and disappeared when monetary incentives to employ more productive workers were higher for employers.

If stimulus responses are linearly related to squared distances between stimulus scale values and person scores along a latent continuum, (a) the stimulus × stimulus correlation matrix will display a simplex-like pattern, (b) the signs of first-order partial correlations can be specified in an empirically testable manner, and (c) the variables will have a semicircular, two-factor structure. Along the semicircle, variables will be ordered by their positions on the latent dimension. The above results suggest procedures for examining the appropriateness of the model and procedures for ordering the stimuli. Applications to developmental and attitudinal data are discussed.

Reduced exposure to sweet taste has been proposed to reduce sweet food preferences and intakes, but the evidence to support these associations is limited. This randomised controlled trial investigated the effects of a whole-diet sweet taste intervention for 6 d, on subsequent pleasantness, desire for and sweet food intakes. Participants (n 104) were randomised to increase (n 40), decrease (n 43) or make no change to (n 21) their consumption of sweet-tasting foods and beverages for 6 consecutive days. Pleasantness, desire to eat, sweet taste intensity and sweet food and beverage intakes were assessed on days 0 and 7. One hundred and two (98 %) participants completed the study, and self-reported adherence with the dietary interventions was moderate to good (M = 66–72/100 mm), with instructions to decrease sweet food consumption reported as more difficult than the other diets (smallest (t(81) = 2·45, P = 0·02, Mdiff = 14/100 mm, se = 2 mm). In intention-to-treat analyses, participants in the decreased sweet food consumption group reported higher sweet taste intensity perceptions at day 7 compared with day 0 (F(2101) = 4·10, P = 0·02, Mdiff = 6/100 mm, se = 2 mm). No effects were found for pleasantness (F(2101) = 2·04, P = 0·14), desire to eat (F(2101) = 1·49, P = 0·23) or any of the measures of sweet food intake (largest F(2101) = 2·53, P = 0·09). These results were confirmed in regression analyses that took self-reported adherence to the diets into account. Our findings suggest that exposure to sweet taste does not affect pleasantness, desire for or intakes of sweet-tasting foods and beverages. Public health recommendations to limit the consumption of sweet-tasting foods and beverages to reduce sweet food preferences may require revision.

It is often morally important that you have a choice between two options in the sense that each option is available to you and you are not coerced into choosing one or the other. Even when you have a choice, though, the presence of time constraints and other noncoercive influences can prevent you from taking the time you need to make up your mind and really choose for yourself. How are we to understand this latter phenomenon? In this essay, I argue that while choosing for yourself seems, at first glance, to be an exercise in discovering your preferences, this is not the whole story. At least sometimes, choosing for yourself instead involves creating your preferences—and, in so doing, choosing what kind of person and valuer to be—through the exercise of what I call formative autonomy. I then explore some objections to this account and some implications for public health policy and clinical ethics. Throughout, I draw primarily on examples that involve choosing whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy and the regulations governing such choices.

Universal basic income (UBI) is becoming a prominent alternative to reform the welfare state, yet public support for this policy remains a puzzle. Existing scholarship empirically shows that certain groups like the low-income and left-wing show support, but it remains unclear if this translates to a preference for UBI over alternatives. This paper argues against this assumption: UBI challenges welfare norms and deservingness principles, suggesting people would typically prefer means-tested options. Drawing on a conjoint experiment, this paper empirically shows supportive evidence of the idea that support for a UBI does not translate into an inherent preference for UBI. These findings have widespread implications for both the UBI literature and the politics of welfare reform.

Many citizens in liberal democracies are concerned about immigration and its impact on their countries. Governments often seek to address these concerns by restricting the post-entry rights of immigrants such as the right to permanent settlement or access to welfare benefits. Thereby, it is expected that immigrants with an inferior legal status are (perceived as) less threatening to natives and, as a result, make the latter more willing to accept new immigrants. Does this policy rationale indeed attenuate public opposition to immigrant admission and thus allow for the reconciliation of the economic need for immigrants with the political concerns of domestic constituents? This study advances the theoretical argument of a rights-conditionality in citizens’ immigration preferences and provides empirical evidence on the phenomenon. A factorial survey experiment among citizens in the United States and Switzerland tests the effect of residence and welfare rights on the public opposition to immigrant admission. The results show that restricting immigrants’ welfare rights does significantly decrease public opposition towards immigration across the two countries. In contrast, restricting immigrants’ residence rights does not, and in the context of Switzerland, even increases opposition to immigrant admission. Citizens critical of immigration are thus not per se more welcoming to immigrants if they receive an inferior legal status but seem to care about immigrants’ contributions and commitment to the receiving society. The findings highlight the importance of immigrants‘ post-entry rights in the view of citizens and show how the design of immigration policies may help to understand public immigration preferences.

The retrieval of past instances stored in memory can guide inferential choices and judgments. Yet, little process-level evidence exists that would allow a similar conclusion for preferential judgments. Recent research suggests that eye movements can trace information search in memory. During retrieval, people gaze at spatial locations associated with relevant information, even if the information is no longer present (the so-called ‘looking-at-nothing’ behavior). We examined eye movements based on the looking-at-nothing behavior to explore memory retrieval in inferential and preferential judgments. In Experiment 1, participants assessed their preference for smoothies with different ingredients, while the other half gauged another person’s preference. In Experiment 2, all participants made preferential judgments with or without instructions to respond as consistently as possible. People looked at exemplar locations in both inferential and preferential judgments, and both with and without consistency instructions. Eye movements to similar training exemplars predicted test judgments but not eye movements to dissimilar exemplars. These results suggest that people retrieve exemplar information in preferential judgments but that retrieval processes are not the sole determinant of judgments.

Survey experiments are an important tool to measure policy preferences. Researchers often rely on the random assignment of policy attribute levels to estimate different types of average marginal effects. Yet, researchers are often interested in how respondents trade-off different policy dimensions. We use a conjoint experiment administered to more than 10,000 respondents in Germany, to study preferences over personal freedoms and public welfare during the COVID-19 crisis. Using a pre-registered structural model, we estimate policy ideal points and indifference curves to assess the conditions under which citizens are willing to sacrifice freedoms in the interest of public well-being. We document broad willingness to accept restrictions on rights alongside sharp heterogeneity with respect to vaccination status. The majority of citizens are vaccinated and strongly support limitations on freedoms in response to extreme conditions—especially, when they vaccinated themselves are exempted from these limitations. The unvaccinated minority prefers no restrictions on freedoms regardless of the severity of the pandemic. These policy packages also matter for reported trust in government, in opposite ways for vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens.

Duncan Black, like Adam Smith before him, was trained at, and taught at, the University of Glasgow. Like Smith, Black followed the Enlightenment in appreciating the importance of theory and of its empirical applications. Black sought to apply the ideas of a schedule of preferences and a conception of equilibrium, to politics, as Smith had done in economics. Black believed that his median voter theorem could generalize to a theory of politics, much as Smith’s contributions did for market economics. Black did not complete that generalization, but William Riker did offer a theory of institutional politics, designed to complete Black’s project.

Electoral systems fulfill different functions. Typically, they cannot meet all demands at the same time, so that the evaluation of specific electoral systems depends on subjective preferences about the single demands. We argue that it is the electorate which transfers its power to representatives and, therefore, its preferences should be considered in debates about electoral systems. Consequently, our contribution presents results of citizens’ demands regarding electoral system attributes. Specifically, we rely on a large-scale conjoint experiment conducted in Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK in which subjects were asked to choose between two electoral systems which randomly differed on a set of attributes referring to electoral systems’ core functions. Our results show that all core functions are generally of importance for the respondents but reveal a higher preference for proportional electoral systems. These preferences are largely stable for citizens in different countries but also for other subgroups of subjects.