This paper challenges the common assumption that economic agents know their tastes. After reviewing previous research showing that valuation of ordinary products and experiences can be manipulated by non-normative cues, we present three studies showing that in some cases people do not even have...

This article describes a modification of the Allais paradox that induces preferences inconsistent with two conditions weaker than the independence axiom, namely quasi-convexity (a special case of which is the betweenness axiom), and Hypothesis II of Machina (also called fanning-out). These...

In six experiments we show that initial valuations of familiar products and simple hedonic experiences are strongly influenced by arbitrary "anchors" (sometimes derived from a person's social security number). Because subsequent valuations are also coherent with respect to salient differences in...

Research on decision-making under uncertainty has been strongly influenced.by the documentation of numerous expected utility anomalies--behaviors that violate the expected utility axioms. The relative lack of progress on the closely related topic of intertemporal choice is partly due to the...

In this paper, we develop a theory of individual choice called melioration, which implies that choices distributed over a period of time may be reliably and predictably suboptimal, in terms of the person's own preferences. Consider some typical examples of distributed choices: the expenditure...

It has recently been suggested that a number of experimental findings of context effects in choice settings can be explained by the ability of subjects to draw choice-relevant inferences from the stimuli. We aim to measure the importance of this explanation. To do so, inferences are assessed in...

Economics has typically been the social science of choice to inform public policy and policymakers. In the current paper we contemplate the role behavioral science can play in enlightening policymakers. In particular, we provide some examples of research that has and can be used to inform...