According to standard rational choice theory, as commonly used in political science and economics, an agent’s fundamental preferences are exogenously fixed, and any preference change over decision options is due to Bayesian information learning. Although elegant and parsimonious, such a model fails to account for preference change driven by experiences or psychological changes distinct from information learning. We develop a model of non-informational preference change. Alternatives are modelled as points in some multidimensional space, only some of whose dimensions play a role in shaping the agent’s preferences. Any change in these ‘motivationally salient’ dimensions can change the agent’s preferences. How it does so is described by a new representation theorem. Our model not only captures a wide range of frequently observed phenomena, but also generalizes some standard representations of preferences in political science and economics.
Becker GS ( 1996) Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press.
2.
Benford RD and Snow DA ( 2000) Framing processes and social movements: an overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology26: 611-639.
3.
Bowles S. ( 1998) Endogenous preferences: the cultural consequences of markets and other economic institutions. Journal of Economic Literature36: 75-111.
4.
Carmines EG and Stimson JA ( 1989) Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
5.
Debreu G. ( 1959) Topological methods in cardinal utility theory. In Arrow KJ, Karlin S and Suppes P (eds) Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 16-26.
6.
Dietrich F. ( 2008) Modelling change in individual characteristics: an axiomatic framework. Working paper, University of Maastricht.
7.
Dietrich F. ( 2009) Anti-terrorism policies and the risk of provoking. Working paper, London School of Economics.
8.
Dietrich F. and List C. ( 2010) A reason-based theory of rational choice. Working paper, London School of Economics.
9.
Druckman JN and Lupia A. ( 2000) Preference formation. Annual Review of Political Science3: 1-24.
10.
Dryzek JS ( 1992) How far is it from Virginia and Rochester to Frankfurt? Public choice as critical theory. British Journal of Political Science22: 397-417.
11.
Dryzek J. and List C. ( 2003) Social choice theory and deliberative democracy: a reconciliation . British Journal of Political Science33: 1-28.
12.
Falk A. and Fischbacher U. ( 2006) A theory of reciprocity. Games and Economic Behavior54: 293-315.
13.
Fehr E. and Gächter S. ( 1998) Reciprocity and economics: the economic implications of Homo Reciprocans. European Economic Review42: 845-859.
14.
Friedman J. (ed) (1996) The Rational Choice Controversy: Economic Models of Politics Reconsidered. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
15.
Gold N. and List C. ( 2004) Framing as path-dependence. Economics and Philosophy20: 253-277.
16.
Green DP and Shapiro I. ( 1994) Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
17.
Hammond PJ ( 1976) Changing tastes and coherent dynamic choice. Review of Economic Studies43: 159-173.
18.
Huckfeldt RR and Kohfeld CW ( 1989) Race and the Decline of Class in American Politics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
19.
Jackson JE ( 1983) Measuring the demand for environmental quality with survey data. Journal of Politics45: 335-350.
20.
Knight J. and Johnson J. ( 1994) Aggregation and deliberation: on the possibility of democratic legitimacy. Political Theory22: 277-296.
21.
Krantz DH, Luce RD, Suppes P. and Tversky A. ( 1971) Foundations of Measurement, Vol. I, Additive and Polynomial Representations. New York: Academic Press.
22.
List C., Luskin RC, Fishkin J. and McLean I. ( 2000/2006) Deliberation, single-peakedness, and the possibility of meaningful democracy: evidence from deliberative polls . Working paper, London School of Economics.
23.
McLean I. ( 2001) Rational Choice and British Politics: An Analysis of Rhetoric and Manipulation from Peel to Blair. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
24.
Miller D. ( 1992) Deliberative democracy and social choice. Political Studies40: 54-67.
25.
Miller G. and Schofield N. ( 2003) Activists and partisan realignment in the United States . American Political Science Review97: 245-260.
26.
Oren I. ( 1994) The Indo-Pakistani arms competition: a deductive and statistical analysis. Journal of Conflict Resolution38: 185-214.
27.
Polak RA ( 1976) Interdependent preferences. American Economic Review66: 309-320.
28.
Rabin M. ( 1998) Psychology and economics. Journal of Economic Literature36: 11-46.
29.
Riker WH ( 1986) The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
30.
Sen A. ( 1977) Rational fools: a critique of the behavioural foundations of economic theory. Philosophy and Public Affairs6: 317-344.
31.
Sen A. ( 2006) Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. New York: W. W. Norton.
32.
Sethi R. and Somanathan E. ( 2001) Preference evolution and reciprocity. Journal of Economic Theory97: 273-297.
33.
Stigler GJ and Becker GS ( 1977) De gustibus non est disputandum. American Economic Review67: 76-90.
34.
Strotz RH(1955-56) Myopia and inconsistency in dynamic utility maximization. Review of Economic Studies23: 165-180.
35.
Tversky A. and Kahneman D. ( 1981) The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice . Science211: 453-458.
36.
Wakker P. ( 1988) The algebraic versus the topological approach to additive representations. Journal of Mathematical Psychology32: 421-435.
