An eigenvalue method of obtaining subjective probabilities

This article deals with decision making by individual persons, living systems at the organism level. It presents a methodology for extracting a set of subjective probabilities from such a decision maker. The method involves obtaining an N × N matrix of compared probabilities and then finding the maximum eigenvalue of this matrix. The unit eigenvector associated with this maximum eigenvalue contains the desired subjective probabilities. The results of an experiment which compared this method with other methods of eliciting subjective probabilities are discussed.