The Construction of Preference: Economic Preferences or Attitude Expressions? An Analysis of Dollar Responses to Public Issues

Participants in contingent valuation surveys and jurors setting punitive damages in civil trials provide answers denominated in dollars. These answers are better understood as expressions of attitudes than as indications of economic preference. Wellestablished characteristics of attitudes and of the core process of affective valuation explain several robust features of dollar responses: high correlations with other measures of attractiveness or aversiveness, insensitivity to scope, preference reversals, and the high variability of dollar responses relative to other measures of attitude.

[1]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Referendum contingent valuation, anchoring, and willingness to pay for public goods , 1998 .

[2]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Value elicitation: Is there anything in there? , 1991 .

[3]  Ian J. Bateman,et al.  Real And Hypothetical Willingness To Pay For Environmental Preservation: A Non‐Experimental Comparison , 1997 .

[4]  A. Tversky,et al.  The weighing of evidence and the determinants of confidence , 1992, Cognitive Psychology.

[5]  Cass R. Sunstein,et al.  Assessing Punitive Damages... , 1997 .

[6]  I. Ritov,et al.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Anchoring in Simulated Competitive Market Negotiation , 2022 .

[7]  J. Payne,et al.  Juror Judgments in Civil Cases: Effects of Plaintiff's Requests and Plaintiff's Identity on Punitive Damage Awards , 1999 .

[8]  H. Neill.  The Context for Substitutes in CVM Studies: Some Empirical Observations , 1995 .

[9]  W. Michael Hanemann,et al.  Valuing the Environment through Contingent Valuation , 1994 .

[10]  Peter A. Diamond,et al.  Testing the Internal Consistency of Contingent Valuation Surveys , 1996 .

[11]  Eric J. Johnson,et al.  Behavioral decision research: A constructive processing perspective. , 1992 .

[12]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Valuing public goods: The purchase of moral satisfaction , 1992 .

[13]  K. Arrow.  Risk Perception in Psychology and Economics , 1982 .

[14]  A. Tversky,et al.  On the psychology of prediction , 1973 .

[15]  D. Rucinski.  The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. , 1994 .

[16]  J. Hausman,et al.  Contingent Valuation: Is Some Number Better than No Number? , 1994 .

[17]  P. Slovic.  The Construction of Preference , 1995 .

[18]  Timothy O'Riordan,et al.  Valuing Environmental Goods: An Assessment of the Contingent Valuation Method , 1987 .

[19]  A. Tversky,et al.  Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk — Source link , 2007 .

[20]  Dale T. Miller,et al.  Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives , 1986 .

[21]  Richard T. Carson,et al.  The Issue of Scope in Contingent Valuation Studies , 1993 .

[22]  David M. Sanbonmatsu,et al.  On the automatic activation of attitudes. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[23]  Daniel McFadden,et al.  Issues in the Contingent Valuation of Environmental Goods: Methodologies for Data Collection and Analysis , 1993 .

[24]  A. Tversky,et al.  BELIEF IN THE LAW OF SMALL NUMBERS , 1971, Pediatrics.

[25]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Experiences extended across time: Evaluation of moments and episodes , 1992 .

[26]  N. Anderson.  A Functional Theory of Cognition , 1996 .

[27]  L. Barsalou.  Cognitive Psychology: An Overview for Cognitive Scientists , 1992 .

[28]  Michael A. Becker.  Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles , 1998 .

[29]  A. Tversky,et al.  Heuristics and Biases: Unpacking, Repacking, and Anchoring: Advances in Support Theory , 2002 .

[30]  R. Carson,et al.  Sequencing and Nesting in Contingent Valuation Surveys , 1995 .

[31]  Robin Gregory,et al.  Do Reminders of Substitutes and Budget Constraints Influence Contingent Valuation Estimates , 1994 .

[32]  J. Koehler.  The base rate fallacy reconsidered: Descriptive, normative, and methodological challenges , 1996, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[33]  A. Tversky,et al.  Prospect Theory : An Analysis of Decision under Risk Author ( s ) : , 2007 .

[34]  A. Lacic.  [A new look]. , 1989, Pielegniarka i polozna.

[35]  P. Niedenthal,et al.  The heart's eye: Emotional influences in perception and attention. , 1994 .

[36]  Milton Lodge,et al.  Magnitude Scaling: Quantitative Measurement of Opinions , 1981 .

[37]  Brian H. Bornstein,et al.  The More You Ask For, the More You Get: Anchoring in Personal Injury Verdicts , 1996 .

[38]  F. Pratto.  Consciousness and Automatic Evaluation , 1994 .

[39]  D. Kahneman,et al.  When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End , 1993 .

[40]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  Scope (in)sensitivity in elicited valuations , 1998 .

[41]  Michael A. Kemp,et al.  EXPLORING A BUDGET CONTEXT FOR CONTINGENT VALUATION ESTIMATES , 1993 .

[42]  F. Strack,et al.  Explaining the Enigmatic Anchoring Effect: Mechanisms of Selective Accessibility , 1997 .

[43]  Graham Loomes,et al.  VALUING THE PREVENTION OF NON-FATAL ROAD INJURIES: CONTINGENT VALUATION VS. STANDARD GAMBLES , 1995 .

[44]  J. M. Kittross.  The measurement of meaning , 1959 .

[45]  R. G. Cummings,et al.  Homegrown Values and Hypothetical Surveys: Is the Dichotomous Choice Approach Incentive-Compatible? , 1995 .

[46]  A. Tesser,et al.  The psychology of evaluation. , 1996 .

[47]  John W. Payne,et al.  Measuring Constructed Preferences: Towards a Building Code , 1999 .

[48]  E. Rosch,et al.  Cognition and Categorization , 1980 .

[49]  Cass R. Sunstein,et al.  Shared Outrage and Erratic Awards: The Psychology of Punitive Damages , 1998 .

[50]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  A new look at anchoring effects: basic anchoring and its antecedents. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[51]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Back to Bentham? Explorations of experience utility , 1997 .

[52]  Alan Randall,et al.  Too Many Proposals Pass the Benefit-Cost Test: Reply , 1989 .

[53]  Daniel McFadden,et al.  Rationality for Economists? , 1999 .

[54]  Ilana Ritov,et al.  Determinants of stated willingness to pay for public goods: A study in the headline method , 1994, Journal of risk and uncertainty.

[55]  A. Tversky,et al.  Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: the conjunction fallacy in probability judgment , 1983 .

[56]  A. Tversky,et al.  Rational choice and the framing of decisions , 1990 .

[57]  Daniel McFadden,et al.  Contingent Valuation and Social Choice , 1994 .

[58]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Measures of Anchoring in Estimation Tasks , 1995 .

[59]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias , 1991 .

[60]  M. Sherif,et al.  The psychology of attitudes. , 1946, Psychological review.

[61]  C. Nickerson.  Does Willingness to Pay Reflect the Purchase of Moral Satisfaction? A Reconsideration of Kahneman and Knetsch , 1995 .

[62]  A. Tversky,et al.  Evidential impact of base rates , 1981 .

[63]  R. Thaler.  The Winner s Curse , 1991 .

[64]  J. Baron,et al.  Framing effects in the evaluation of multiple risk reduction , 1993 .

[65]  Jon Strand,et al.  Willingness to pay for environmental goods in Norway: A contingent valuation study with real payment , 1990 .

[66]  Robert Cameron Mitchell,et al.  Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method , 1989 .

[67]  A. Tversky,et al.  Subjective Probability: A Judgment of Representativeness , 1972 .

[68]  Alan Randall,et al.  Embedding in market demand systems , 1996 .

[69]  Jonathan Baron,et al.  Determinants of insensitivity to quantity in valuation of public goods: Contribution, warm glow, budget constraints, availability, and prominence , 1996 .

[70]  V. Smith,et al.  Arbitrary values, good causes, and premature verdicts , 1992 .

[71]  Amos Tversky,et al.  Causal versus diagnostic contingencies: On self-deception and on the voter's illusion. , 1984 .