IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/theord/v84y2018i4d10.1007_s11238-017-9634-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

This or that? Sequential rationalization of indecisive choice behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Jesper Armouti-Hansen

    (University of Cologne)

  • Christopher Kops

    (University of Cologne)

Abstract

Decision-makers frequently struggle to base their choices on an exhaustive evaluation of all options at stake. This is particularly so when the choice problem at hand is complex, because the available alternatives are hard (if not impossible) to compare. Rather than striving to choose the most valuable alternative, in such situations decision-makers often settle for the choice of an alternative which is not inferior to any other available alternative instead. In this paper, we extend two established models of boundedly rational choice, the categorize then choose heuristic and the rational shortlist method, to incorporate this kind of “indecisive” choice behavior. We study some properties of these extensions and provide full behavioral characterizations.

Suggested Citation

  • Jesper Armouti-Hansen & Christopher Kops, 2018. "This or that? Sequential rationalization of indecisive choice behavior," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(4), pages 507-524, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:84:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s11238-017-9634-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11238-017-9634-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11238-017-9634-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11238-017-9634-8?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ariel Rubinstein & Yuval Salant, 2012. "Eliciting Welfare Preferences from Behavioural Data Sets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 375-387.
    2. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2007. "Sequentially Rationalizable Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1824-1839, December.
    3. Brian Hill, 2012. "Confidence in preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(2), pages 273-302, July.
    4. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Daisuke Nakajima & Erkut Y. Ozbay, 2012. "Revealed Attention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2183-2205, August.
    5. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2012. "Categorize Then Choose: Boundedly Rational Choice And Welfare," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 1141-1165, October.
    6. , & ,, 2006. "A model of choice from lists," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(1), pages 3-17, March.
    7. José Apesteguía & Miguel A. Ballester, 2005. "Minimal Books Of Rationales," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 0501, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra.
    8. Gil Kalai & Ariel Rubinstein & Ran Spiegler, 2002. "Rationalizing Choice Functions By Multiple Rationales," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2481-2488, November.
    9. Au, Pak Hung & Kawai, Keiichi, 2011. "Sequentially rationalizable choice with transitive rationales," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 608-614.
    10. Sen, Amartya, 1993. "Internal Consistency of Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 495-521, May.
    11. Mandler, Michael, 2009. "Indifference and incompleteness distinguished by rational trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 300-314, September.
    12. Eliaz, Kfir & Ok, Efe A., 2006. "Indifference or indecisiveness? Choice-theoretic foundations of incomplete preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 61-86, July.
    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. Vicki Knoblauch, 2020. "Von Neumann–Morgenstern stable set rationalization of choice functions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(3), pages 369-381, October.
    2. Kops, Christopher, 2022. "Cluster-shortlisted choice," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    3. Armouti-Hansen, Jesper & Kops, Christopher, 2024. "Managing anticipation and reference-dependent choice," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    4. Qin, Dan, 2024. "A simple model of two-stage choice," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    5. David M. Ramsey, 2020. "A Game Theoretic Model of Choosing a Valuable Good via a Short List Heuristic," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-20, February.

    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. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2015. "State dependent choice," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(2), pages 239-268, September.
    2. Manzini, Paola & Mariotti, Marco & Tyson, Christopher J., 2016. "Partial knowledge restrictions on the two-stage threshold model of choice," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 41-47.
    3. Manzini, Paola & Mariotti, Marco & Tyson, Christopher J., 2016. "Partial knowledge restrictions on the two-stage threshold model of choice," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 41-47.
    4. Alfio Giarlotta & Angelo Petralia & Stephen Watson, 2022. "Semantics meets attractiveness: Choice by salience," Papers 2204.08798, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    5. Domenico Cantone & Alfio Giarlotta & Stephen Watson, 2019. "Congruence relations on a choice space," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(2), pages 247-294, February.
    6. Georgios Gerasimou, 2016. "Partially dominant choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(1), pages 127-145, January.
    7. Lleras, Juan Sebastián & Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Nakajima, Daisuke & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2017. "When more is less: Limited consideration," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 70-85.
    8. Manzini, Paola & Mariotti, Marco & Tyson, Christopher J, 2015. "Partial Knowledge Restrictions on theTwo-Stage Threshold Model of Choice," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-58, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Manzini, Paola & Mariotti, Marco & Tyson, Christopher J., 2016. "Partial knowledge restrictions on the two-stage threshold model of choice," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 41-47.
    10. Christopher Tyson, 2015. "Satisficing behavior with a secondary criterion," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 639-661, March.
    11. García-Sanz, María D. & Alcantud, José Carlos R., 2015. "Sequential rationalization of multivalued choice," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 29-33.
    12. T. Hayashi & R. Jain & V. Korpela & M. Lombardi, 2023. "Behavioral strong implementation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(4), pages 1257-1287, November.
    13. Geoffroy de Clippel, 2014. "Behavioral Implementation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 2975-3002, October.
    14. Christopher Tyson, 2015. "Satisficing behavior with a secondary criterion," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 639-661, March.
    15. Horan, Sean, 2016. "A simple model of two-stage choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 372-406.
    16. Brian Hill, 2012. "Confidence in preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(2), pages 273-302, July.
    17. Yuta Inoue, 2020. "Growing Consideration," Working Papers 2003, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    18. Yuta Inoue & Koji Shirai, 2018. "Limited consideration and limited data: revealed preference tests and observable restrictions," Discussion Paper Series 176, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Mar 2018.
    19. de Clippel, Geoffroy & Rozen, Kareen, 2021. "Bounded rationality and limited datasets," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(2), May.
    20. Yuta Inoue & Koji Shirai, 2016. "Limited consideration and limited data," Discussion Paper Series 149, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Oct 2016.

    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:kap:theord:v:84:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s11238-017-9634-8. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.