Abstract
Unfortunately, the decision sciences are segregated into nearly distinct academic societies and distinct research paradigms. This intellectual isolationism has allowed different approaches to the decision sciences to suffer from different, but important, conceptual gaps. Following earlier efforts to cross-fertilize individual and social choice research, this paper applies behavioral social choice concepts to individual decision making.
Repeated individual choice among identical pairs of choice alternatives often fluctuates dramatically over even very short time periods. Social choice theory usually ignores this because it identifies each individual with a single fixed weak order. Behavioral individual decision research may expose itself to Condorcet paradoxes because it often interprets a decision maker’s modal choice (i.e., majority choice) over repeated trials as revealing their “true” preference. We investigate variability in choice behavior within each individual in the research lab. Within that paradigm, we look for evidence of Condorcet cycles, as well as for the famed disagreement between the Condorcet and Borda aggregation methods. We also illustrate some methodological complexities involved with likelihood ratio tests for Condorcet cycles in paired comparison data.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arrow, K.J.: Social Choice and Individual Values. Wiley, New York (1951)
Balinski, M.L., Young, H.P.: Fair Representation: Meeting the Idea of One Man, One Vote. Yale University Press, New Haven (1982)
Black, D.: The Theory of Committees and Elections. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1958)
Block, H.D., Marschak, J.: Random orderings and stochastic theories of responses. In: Olkin, I., Ghurye, S., Hoeffding, H., Madow, W., Mann, H. (eds.) Contributions to Probability and Statistics, pp. 97–132. Stanford University Press, Stanford (1960)
Borda, J.-C.: On elections by ballot. Paper orally presented to the French Academy (1770)
Brams, S.J., Taylor, A.D.: Fair Division: From Cake Cutting to Dispute Resolution. Cambridge University Press, New York (1996)
Brandstätter, E., Gigerenzer, G., Hertwig, R.: The priority heuristic: Making choices without trade-offs. Psychological Review 113, 409–432 (2006)
Condorcet, M.: Essai sur l’application de l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix. Essai on the application of the probabilistic analysis of majority vote decisions, Imprimerie Royale, Paris (1785)
Davis-Stober, C.P.: Analysis of multinomial models under inequality constraints: Applications to measurement theory. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 53, 1–13 (2009)
DeMeyer, F., Plott, C.R.: The probability of a cyclical majority. Econometrica 38, 345–354 (1970)
Dryzek, J., List, C.: Social choice theory and deliberative democracy: A reconciliation. British Journal of Political Science 33, 1–28 (2003)
Efron, B., Tibshirani, R.J.: An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Chapman and Hall, New York (1993)
Feld, S.L., Grofman, B.: Who is afraid of the big bad cycle? Evidence from 36 elections. Journal of Theoretical Politics 4, 231–237 (1992)
Felsenthal, D.S., Maoz, Z., Rapoport, A.: An empirical evaluation of 6 voting procedures - do they really make any difference? British Journal of Political Science 23, 1–27 (1993)
Fishburn, P.C.: Utility Theory for Decision Making. In: Krieger, R.E. (ed.) Huntington (1979)
Gehrlein, W.V.: Concorcet’s paradox. Theory and Decision 15, 161–197 (1983)
Gehrlein, W.V., Fishburn, P.C.: The probability of the paradox of voting: A computable solution. Journal of Economic Theory 13, 14–25 (1976)
Hastie, R., Kameda, T.: The robust beauty of majority rules in group decisions. Psychological Review 112, 494–508 (2005)
Iverson, G.J., Falmagne, J.-C.: Statistical issues in measurement. Mathematical Social Sciences 10, 131–153 (1985)
Jones, B., Radcliff, B., Taber, C., Timpone, R.: Condorcet winners and the paradox of voting: Probability calculations for weak preference orders. The American Political Science Review 89(1), 137–144 (1995)
Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L., Thaler, R.: Fairness as a constraint on profit seeking entitlements in the market. American Economic Review 76, 728–741 (1986)
Kahneman, D., Tversky, A.: Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47, 263–291 (1979)
Kahneman, D., Tversky, A. (eds.): Choices, Values, and Frames. Cambridge University Press, New York (2000)
Konow, J.: Is fairness in the eye of the beholder? an impartial spectator analysis of justice (2008)
Krantz, D.H., Luce, R.D., Suppes, P., Tversky, A.: Foundations of Measurement, vol. 1. Academic Press, San Diego (1971)
Lepelley, D.: Concorcet’s paradox. Theory and Decision 15, 161–197 (1993)
List, C., Goodin, R.E.: Epistemic democracy: Generalizing the condorcet jury theorem. Journal of Political Philosophy 9, 277–306 (2001)
List, C., Luskin, R.C., Fishkin, J.S., McLean, I.: Deliberation, single-peakedness, and the possibility of meaningful democracy: Evidence from deliberative polls. In: Working pape, London School of Economics and Stanford University, London (2007)
Loomes, G., Sugden, R.: Incorporating a stochastic element into decision theories. European Economic Review 39, 641–648 (1995)
Luce, R.D., Suppes, P.: Preference, utility and subjective probability. In: Luce, R.D., Bush, R.R., Galanter, E. (eds.) Handbook of Mathematical Psycholog, vol. III, pp. 249–410. Wiley, New York (1965)
Mackie, G.: Democracy Defined. Cambridge University Press, New York (2003)
McKelvey, R.D.: General conditions for global intransitivities in formal voting models. Econometrica 47, 1085–1112 (1979)
Mueller, D.C.: Public Choice III. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2003)
Myung, J., Karabatsos, G., Iverson, G.: A Bayesian approach to testing decision making axioms. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 49, 205–225 (2005)
Regenwetter, M.: Perspectives on preference aggregation. Perspectives on Psychological Science 4, 403–407 (2009)
Regenwetter, M., Dana, J., Davis-Stober, C.P.: Testing transitivity of preferences on two-alternative forced choice data. Frontiers in Quantitative Psychology and Measurement 1(148) (2010), http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/Abstract.aspx?f=69&name=psychology&ART_DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00148 , doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00148
Regenwetter, M., Dana, J., Davis-Stober, C.P.: Transitivity of preferences. Psychological Review (in press)
Regenwetter, M., Davis-Stober, C.P.: Choice variability versus structural inconsistency of preferences. In: Manuscript under review (2009)
Regenwetter, M., Grofman, B., Marley, A., Tsetlin, I.: Behavioral Social Choice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2006)
Regenwetter, M., Grofman, B., Popova, A., Messner, W., Davis-Stober, C.P., Cavagnaro, D.R.: Behavioural social choice: A status report. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 364, 833–843 (2009b)
Regenwetter, M., Ho, M.-H., Tsetlin, I.: Sophisticated approval voting, ignorance priors, and plurality heuristics: A behavioral social choice analysis in a Thurstonian framework. Psychological Review 114, 994–1014 (2007a)
Regenwetter, M., Kim, A., Kantor, A., Ho, M.-H.: The unexpected empirical consensus among consensus methods. Psychological Science 18, 559–656 (2007b)
Regenwetter, M., Marley, A.A.J., Grofman, B.: A general concept of majority rule. Mathematical Social Sciences: special issue on random utility theory and probabilistic measurement theory 43, 407–430 (2002)
Regenwetter, M., Rykhlevskaia, E.: A general concept of scoring rules: General definitions, statistical inference, and empirical illustrations. Social Choice and Welfare 29, 211–228 (2007)
Riker, W.H.: Liberalism v. Populism. In: Freeman, W.H. (ed.) Liberalism v. Populism, W. H. Freeman and Co, San Fransisco (1982)
Roberts, F.S.: Measurement Theory. Addison-Wesley, London (1979)
Saari, D.G.: Basic Geometry of Voting. Springer, New York (1995)
Saari, D.G.: Explaining all three-alternative voting outcomes. Journal of Economic Theory 87, 313–355 (1999)
Saari, D.G.: Mathematical structure of voting paradoxes 1: Pairwise vote. Economic Theory 15, 1–53 (2000a)
Saari, D.G.: Mathematical structure of voting paradoxes 2: Positional voting. Economic Journal 15, 55–101 (2000b)
Saari, D.G.: Decisions and Elections: Explaining the Unexpected. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2001)
Schokkaert, E., Devooght, K.: Responsibility-sensitive fair compensation in different cultures. Social Choice and Welfare 21, 207–242 (2003)
Schokkaert, E., Lagrou, L.: An empirical approach to distributive justice. Journal of Public Economics 21(1), 33–52 (1983)
Sen, A.K.: Collective Choice and Social Welfare. Holden-Day, San Fransisco (1970)
Tangian, A.: Unlikelihood of Condorcet’s paradox in a large society. Social Choice and Welfare 17, 337–365 (2000)
Tangiane, A.S.: Aggregation and representation of preferences: Introduction to mathematical theory of democracy. Springer, Berlin (1991)
Tversky, A.: Intransitivity of preferences. Psychological Review 76, 31–48 (1969)
Tversky, A., Kahneman, D.: The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science 211, 453–458 (1981)
Tversky, A., Kahneman, D.: Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 5, 297–323 (1992)
Van Deemen, A.: The probability of the paradox of voting for weak preference orderings. Social Choice and Welfare 16, 171–182 (1999)
Young, H.P.: An axiomatization of Borda’s rule. Journal of Economic Theory 9, 43–52 (1974)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Regenwetter, M., Popova, A. (2011). Consensus with Oneself: Within-Person Choice Aggregation in the Laboratory. In: Herrera-Viedma, E., García-Lapresta, J.L., Kacprzyk, J., Fedrizzi, M., Nurmi, H., Zadrożny, S. (eds) Consensual Processes. Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing, vol 267. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20533-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20533-0_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-20532-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-20533-0
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)