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Abstract
This study examines decisiveness as a potential moderator of the attraction effect. In an online experiment, we find that even though decisiveness moderates the attraction effect, it also moderates the preference reversal in the absence of a decoy. This suggests that the moderating role of decisiveness in the attraction effect lies, at least partially, in moderating choice reversals unrelated to the decoy. In addition, our findings show that about one-third of the most decisive participants exhibit an attraction effect. These findings are inconsistent with a conceptualization of a moderate attraction effect, arguing that only indecisive agents exhibit the effect. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

AbstractExpected Utility Theory (EUT) provides axioms for maximizing utility in risky choice. The Independence Axiom (IA) is its most demanding axiom: preferences between two options should not change when altering both options equally by mixing them with a common gamble. We tested common consequence (CC) and common ratio (CR) violations of the IA over several months in thousands of stochastic choices using a large variety of binary option sets. Three monkeys showed consistently few outright Preference Reversals (8%) but substantial graded Preference Changes (46%) between the initial preferred gamble and the corresponding altered gamble. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) indicated that gamble probabilities predicted most Preference Changes in CC (72%) and CR (88%) tests. The Akaike Information Criterion indicated that probability weighting within Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT) explained choices better than models using Expected Value (EV) or EUT. Fitting by utility and probability weighting functions of CPT resulted in nonlinear and non-parallel indifference curves (IC) in the Marschak-Machina triangle and suggested IA non-compliance of models using EV or EUT. Indeed, CPT models predicted Preference Changes better than EV and EUT models. Indifference points in out-of-sample tests were closer to CPT-estimated ICs than EV and EUT ICs. Finally, while the few outright Preference Reversals may reflect the long experience of our monkeys, their more graded Preference Changes corresponded to those reported for humans. In benefitting from the wide testing possibilities in monkeys, our stringent axiomatic tests contribute critical information about risky decision-making and serves as basis for investigating neuronal decision mechanisms.

In this study we conduct a least-likely case study in order to assess the analytical power of the ideational approach to populism. We do so by testing the direct and conditional effects of populist attitudes on vote choices in Argentina. We examine whether populist attitudes are associated with the Peronist vote, as more essentialist interpretations would lead us to expect, or, on the contrary, linked to vote for right parties, an expectation that is more consistent with thin-ideological approaches. Our data consists of an original online survey carried out in September 2020, a specific juncture at which the Peronist government had to deal with widespread popular discontent caused by intense economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings reveal that populist attitudes are positively associated with voting for right parties and that the effects of such attitudes are conditioned by ideological preferences. These results underscore the explanatory power of ideational approaches to the electoral activation of populist attitudes.

Children with autism are characterized by the absence of functional spontaneous speech. This study assessed whether the type of stimulus materials (preferred versus nonpreferred) would affect the frequency of spontaneous verbal requests in these children. The results of the repeated reversals analysis revealed that the frequency of spontaneous verbal requests was higher in the preferred materials condition than in the nonpreferred materials condition. The results are discussed in relation to issues involving motivation and the development of naturalistic, context-appropriate speech training procedures.

AbstractDespite declining memberships, labor unions still represent large shares of electorates worldwide. Yet their political clout remains contested. To what extent, and in what way, do unions shape workers' political preferences? We address these questions by combining unique survey data of American workers and a set of inferential strategies that exploit two sources of variation: the legal choice that workers face in joining or opting out of unions and the over‐time reversal of a union's policy position. Focusing on the issue of trade, we offer evidence that unions influence their members' policy preferences in a significant and theoretically predictable manner. In contrast, we find that self‐selection into membership accounts at most for a quarter of the observed "union effect." The study illuminates the impact of unions in cohering workers' voice and provides insight on the role of information provision in shaping how citizens form policy preferences.

Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- 1 Introduction -- 2 An Agricultural Household Model with Tariffs -- 2.1 General Formulation -- 2.1.1 Household Welfare -- 2.1.2 The Impacts of Tariff Changes -- 2.2 A Baseline Model -- 3 Data and Estimation -- 3.1 The Household Surveys -- 3.2 Harmonization -- 3.3 Trade Policy and Price Changes -- 3.4 Expenditure and Income Shares -- 3.5 Labor Income in the Baseline Model -- 3.6 Transfers -- 4 Income Gains and Inequality Costs -- 4.1 Income Gains from Trade -- 4.1.1 Sources of Gains from Trade -- 4.1.2 The Gender Bias of Trade -- 4.2 The Distributional Effects of Trade -- 4.2.1 Countries with Pro-poor Bias -- 4.2.2 Countries with Pro-rich Bias -- 4.3 Worldwide Gains -- 5 The Trade-Off -- 5.1 No Trade-off Countries -- 5.2 Trade-off Countries without Trade Policy Preference Reversals -- 5.3 Trade-off Countries with Trade Policy Preference Reversals -- 5.4 Assessment -- 5.5 Underlying Factors: Expenditure and Income Household Heterogeneity -- 6 Alternative Models -- 6.1 Models of Labor Markets -- 6.1.1 No Labor Markets -- 6.1.2 Imperfectly Mobile Labor -- Production Functions -- Workers' Choices -- Equilibrium -- Calibration at the Steady State -- Trade Shock Simulations -- First Order Welfare Effects -- Wage and Non-traded Price Responses to Trade Shocks -- 6.2 Models of Income Tax Redistribution -- 6.2.1 No Revenue Loss -- 6.2.2 Income Tax Progressivity -- 6.3 The Gains from Trade -- 6.4 The Trade-offs -- 7 HIT: Household Impacts of Trade -- 7.1 The Household Impacts of Tariff Database -- 7.2 Agricultural Tariff Liberalization -- 8 Conclusions -- Bibliography.

Consumer research suggests product purchases are influenced by whether a product is seen as hedonic or utilitarian and whether the consumer is given several choices or just one. For example, Okada (2005) found people prefer hedonic alternatives when choices are presented singly, but
choose utilitarian options in joint presentations. She theorized that this preference reversal is due to guilt over hedonic purchases.This study was designed to investigate choices in a sales promotion context. Forty-two university student volunteers were divided into five groups. Four
of the groups read a description of one of four 15 promotional offers (plain t-shirt, school t-shirt, designer t-shirt, 15 in cash) and the fifth saw all four offers; respondents were asked whether the offer(s) would prompt them to travel to a store 20 miles away to purchase a 100 pair of
jeans. They were also asked to rate the item(s) on a hedonic scale and a utilitarian scale.A comparison of promotions presented singly with promotions presented jointly did not support Okada's theory of preference reversal. In this study, the plain t-shirt (high utility/low hedonism)
elicited more positive responses when presented alone, χ2(1, N = 18) = 6.77, p < .01; the designer t-shirt (low utility/high hedonism) drew more positive responses when presented in a set, χ2(1, N =17) = 5.03, p < .05, suggesting a contrast effect
rather than a guilt effect.

1.3 Subjective expected utility theory (SE -- 1.4 Eliciting the utility function under EU -- 1.4.1 The case of known probabilities -- 1.4.2 The case of unknown probabilities -- 1.5 Violations of expected utility theory -- 1.5.1 Violations of the independence axiom -- 1.5.2 The probability triangle and violations of the axioms of rationality -- 1.5.3 Some attempts to relax the independence axiom -- 1.5.4 Attitudes to risk for small and large stakes: Rabin's paradox -- 1.5.5 Violations of description invariance -- 1.5.6 Preference reversals -- 1.5.7 Is the reduction axiom supported by the evidence?

AbstractDrawing on past research on judgment and decision making, as well as preference reversal, we investigated the impact of question framing on support for military versus diplomatic conflict resolution strategies. In three studies with two heterogeneous samples from the United States and one representative sample from Israel, preferences for military action were substantially stronger when asked in isolation (i.e., "yes/no" [support/reject]) rather than in conjunction with the alternative of diplomacy (i.e., "either‐or" [military or diplomacy]), sometimes even causing a complete reversal from majority support for military action to majority support for diplomacy. These findings point to problems in public opinion polls and scientific research on military support (usually presenting no alternatives), and address issues important for psychology, political science, sociology, and survey methodology. In a real world context, our findings have important implications for governmental decisions on conflict resolution strategies and the implementation of policies based on public opinion.

This article examines methodological individualism in terms of the theory that invariance under intervention is the signal feature of generalizations that serve as a basis for causal explanation. This theory supports the holist contention that macro-level generalizations can explain, but it also suggests a defense of methodological individualism on the grounds that greater range of invariance under intervention entails deeper explanation. Although this individualist position is not threatened by multiple-realizability, an argument for it based on rational choice theory is called into question by experimental results concerning preference reversals.

"We present a theory of choice among lotteries in which the decision maker's attention is drawn to (precisely defined) salient payoffs. This leads the decision maker to a context-dependent representation of lotteries in which true probabilities are replaced by decision weights distorted in favor of salient payoffs. By endogenizing decision weights as a function of payoffs, our model provides a novel and unified account of many empirical phenomena, including frequent risk-seeking behavior, invariance failures such as the Allais paradox, and preference reversals. It also yields new predictions, including some that distinguish it from Prospect Theory, which we test"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

International relations theorists have tried to adapt prospect theory to make it relevant to the study of real‐world decision‐making and testable beyond the constraints of the laboratory. Three experiments with undergraduate samples were conducted in an effort to clarify the advantages and limitations of prospect theory as adapted to explain political behavior. The first experiment tested hypotheses regarding the impact of prospect framing on group polarization, but these were only weakly supported. The second and third experiments examined alternative adaptations of the concept of framing; the results suggest that the political science expansion of the concept of framing may, under certain conditions, produce clear and robust preference reversals.

chapter 1 Introduction: epistemology, experiments and economics -- part PART 1 The social epistemology of experiment -- chapter 2 Creating phenomena in the lab -- chapter 3 Creating microeconomic phenomena -- chapter 4 Intervening in the 'material world' -- chapter 5 Intervening in the 'social world' -- chapter 6 The social epistemology of experiment -- part PART 2 The social epistemology of experimental economics -- chapter 7 The foundation of experimental economics -- chapter 8 Early methodological debate in experimental economics -- chapter 9 Economics experiments and the real world -- chapter 10 Human agency (or lack thereof) in economics experiments -- chapter 11 Behavioural experiments: How economists learn about human behaviour -- chapter 12 Preference reversals and critical practice in economics -- chapter 13 Conclusion: What about the social epistemology of experiment?.