IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v81y2020ics0167487020300726.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Description-dependent preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Borie, Dino
  • Jullien, Dorian

Abstract

We propose a theoretical perspective on framing effects where decision makers violate the axiom of description invariance. We first propose a framework that makes this axiom explicit and then we weaken it to allow for description dependence. This framework provides a structure to disentangle different violations of description invariance. We then identify a particular class of violations that we call tidy description-dependent preferences, which are compatible with a transitive preference relation over the consequences of the choice set. We show that many violations observed in the literature are actually in this class.

Suggested Citation

  • Borie, Dino & Jullien, Dorian, 2020. "Description-dependent preferences," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:81:y:2020:i:c:s0167487020300726
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2020.102311
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487020300726
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joep.2020.102311?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dietrich, Franz & List, Christian, 2016. "Reason-Based Choice And Context-Dependence: An Explanatory Framework," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 175-229, July.
    2. Rabin, Matthew, 2002. "A perspective on psychology and economics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 657-685, May.
    3. Drew Fudenberg, 2006. "Advancing Beyond Advances in Behavioral Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 694-711, September.
    4. David K. Levine & Drew Fudenberg, 2006. "A Dual-Self Model of Impulse Control," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1449-1476, December.
    5. Dietrich, Franz & List, Christian, 2009. "A reason-based theory of rational choice," MPRA Paper 36112, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2011.
    6. Raphaël Giraud, 2005. "Anomalies de la théorie des préférences. Une interprétation et une proposition de formalisation," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 56(4), pages 829-854.
    7. Levin, Irwin P & Gaeth, Gary J, 1988. "How Consumers Are Affected by the Framing of Attribute Information before and after Consuming the Product," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 15(3), pages 374-378, December.
    8. Sugden, Robert, 1991. "Rational Choice: A Survey of Contributions from Economics and Philosophy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 751-785, July.
    9. Yuval Salant & Ariel Rubinstein, 2008. "(A, f): Choice with Frames -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1287-1296.
    10. Raphaël Giraud, 2004. "Framing under risk: Endogenizing the Reference Point and Separating Cognition and Decision," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques bla04090, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    11. Lanzi, Diego, 2011. "Frames as choice superstructures," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 115-123, April.
    12. Matthew Rabin, 1998. "Psychology and Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 11-46, March.
    13. 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.
    14. Druckman, James N., 2001. "Evaluating framing effects," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 91-101, February.
    15. Mandel, David R., 2001. "Gain-Loss Framing and Choice: Separating Outcome Formulations from Descriptor Formulations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 56-76, May.
    16. 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.
    17. Smith, Vernon L, 1985. "Experimental Economics: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 264-272, March.
    18. Amartya Sen, 1969. "Quasi-Transitivity, Rational Choice and Collective Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 36(3), pages 381-393.
    19. Silvia Lerner, 2014. "A non-monotonic intensional framework for framing effects," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 37-53, March.
    20. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01249514 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Kazuhisa Takemura, 2014. "Behavioral Decision Theory," Springer Books, Springer, edition 127, number 978-4-431-54580-4, June.
    22. Kuhberger, Anton & Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael & Perner, Josef, 1999. "The Effects of Framing, Reflection, Probability, and Payoff on Risk Preference in Choice Tasks, ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 204-231, June.
    23. Gold, Natalie & List, Christian, 2004. "Framing as Path Dependence," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 253-277, October.
    24. Kuhberger, Anton & Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael & Perner, Josef, 2002. "Framing decisions: Hypothetical and real," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 1162-1175, November.
    25. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde & Raphaël Giraud, 2009. "Framing effects as violations of extensionality," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 385-404, October.
    26. Keren, Gideon, 2007. "Framing, intentions, and trust-choice incompatibility," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 238-255, July.
    27. Arrow, Kenneth J, 1982. "Risk Perception in Psychology and Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(1), pages 1-9, January.
    28. Machina, Mark J, 1987. "Choice under Uncertainty: Problems Solved and Unsolved," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 121-154, Summer.
    29. van Buiten, Marc & Keren, Gideon, 2009. "Speaker-listener incompatibility: Joint and separate processing in risky choice framing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 106-115, January.
    30. Levin, Irwin P. & Schneider, Sandra L. & Gaeth, Gary J., 1998. "All Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology and Critical Analysis of Framing Effects," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 149-188, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ostermair, Christoph, 2022. "An experimental investigation of the Allais paradox with subjective probabilities and correlated outcomes," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Fatas, Enrique & Restrepo-Plaza, Lina, 2022. "When losses can be a gain. A large lab-in-the-field experiment on reference dependent forgiveness in Colombia," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Ferro, Giuseppe M. & Kovalenko, Tatyana & Sornette, Didier, 2021. "Quantum decision theory augments rank-dependent expected utility and Cumulative Prospect Theory," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).

    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. Dorian Jullien, 2016. "All Frames Created Equal are Not Identical: On the Structure of Kahneman and Tversky's Framing Effects," GREDEG Working Papers 2016-17, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    2. Dorian Jullien, 2013. "Asian Disease-type of Framing of Outcomes as an Historical Curiosity," GREDEG Working Papers 2013-47, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    3. Dino Borie & Dorian Jullien, 2016. "Weakening Description Invariance to Deal with Framing Effects: An Axiomatic Approach," GREDEG Working Papers 2016-14, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    4. Dino Borie & Dorian Jullien, 2019. "Description-dependent Choices," Working Papers halshs-01651086, HAL.
    5. van Buiten, Marc & Keren, Gideon, 2009. "Speaker-listener incompatibility: Joint and separate processing in risky choice framing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 106-115, January.
    6. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    7. Bruno S. Frey & Matthias Benz, 2004. "From Imperialism to Inspiration: A Survey of Economics and Psychology," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & Alain Marciano & Jochen Runde (ed.), The Elgar Companion To Economics and Philosophy, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Egil Matsen & Bjarne Strøm, 2006. "Joker: Choice in a simple game with large stakes," Working Paper Series 8307, Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
    9. Katharina Dowling & Daniel Guhl & Daniel Klapper & Martin Spann & Lucas Stich & Narine Yegoryan, 2020. "Behavioral biases in marketing," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 449-477, May.
    10. Klaus Abbink & Heike Hennig-Schmidt, 2006. "Neutral versus loaded instructions in a bribery experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(2), pages 103-121, June.
    11. Brzozowicz Magdalena, 2018. "Hypothetical bias and framing effect in the valuation of private consumer goods," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 5(52), pages 260-269, January.
    12. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde & Raphaël Giraud, 2009. "Framing effects as violations of extensionality," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 385-404, October.
    13. Enrique Fatas & Tibor Neugebauer & Pilar Tamborero, 2007. "How Politicians Make Decisions: A Political Choice Experiment," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 92(2), pages 167-196, October.
    14. Boissonnet, Niels & Ghersengorin, Alexis & Gleyze, Simon, 2020. "Revealed Deliberate Preference Changes," MPRA Paper 101756, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Wardley, Marcus & Alberhasky, Max, 2021. "Framing zero: Why losing nothing is better than gaining nothing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    16. Nicolas Brisset & Dorian Jullien, 2019. "Models as Speech Acts: A Restatement and a new Case Study," GREDEG Working Papers 2019-09, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    17. Guido Baltussen & G. Post & Martijn Assem & Peter Wakker, 2012. "Random incentive systems in a dynamic choice experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(3), pages 418-443, September.
    18. Franz Dietrich & Christian List, 2013. "Where do preferences come from?," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(3), pages 613-637, August.
    19. Lotz, Aïleen, 2011. "An Economic Approach to the Self : the Dual Agent," MPRA Paper 50771, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:5:p:424-440 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Gold, Natalie, 2020. "How should we reconcile self-regarding and pro-social motivations? A renaissance of “Das Adam Smith Problem”," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 109218, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Description invariance; Framing effect; Description dependence; Decision theory;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    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:eee:joepsy:v:81:y:2020:i:c:s0167487020300726. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    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.