Idiosyncratic Preferences Research Articles

Appreciation of singing and speaking voices is highly idiosyncratic.

Voice preferences are an integral part of interpersonal interactions and shape how people connect with each other. While a large number of studies have investigated the mechanisms behind (speaking) voice attractiveness, very little research was dedicated to other types of vocalizations. In this Registered Report, we proposed to investigate voice preferences with an integrative approach. To this end, we used a newly recorded and validated stimulus set of contrasting vocalizations by 22 highly trained female singers speaking and singing the same material (in Brazilian Portuguese) in contrasting styles (sung as a lullaby, as a pop song or as an opera aria; and spoken aloud as if directed to an adult audience and as if directed to an infant). We asked 62 participants to rate these vocalizations in terms of how much they liked them; and we compared the amount of shared taste (that is, how much participants agreed in their preferences) across styles. We found highly idiosyncratic preferences across all styles. Our predictions concerning shared taste were not confirmed: although shared taste was higher for lullaby than for pop singing, it was unexpectedly higher for operatic than pop singing, and higher for infant-directed than adult-directed speech. Conversely, our prediction of limited consistency in average preferences for some singers across styles was confirmed, contradicting sexual selection-based ideas of singing and speaking as 'backup' signals of individual fitness. Our findings draw attention to the role of individual differences in voice preferences and highlight the need for a broader approach to understanding the underlying mechanisms of voice preferences. Stage 1 recommendation and review history: https://rr.peercommunityin.org/articles/rec?id=357. Stage 2 recommendation and review history: https://rr.peercommunityin.org/articles/rec?id=802.

Wealth and the nativity earnings gap

I document that differences in wealth between natives and immigrants contribute to the nativity wage gap. The evidence suggests that the non-earnings determinants of wealth, such as institutional barriers that prevent immigrants from accessing financial markets, and idiosyncratic preferences that affect immigrants’ willingness to use financial instruments, play a particularly important role.

Simulated maximum likelihood estimation of the sequential search model

AbstractWe propose a new approach to simulate the likelihood of the sequential search model. By allowing search costs to be heterogeneous across consumers and products, we directly compute the joint probability of the search and purchase decisions when consumers are searching for the idiosyncratic preference shocks in their utility functions. Under the assumptions of Weitzman’s sequential search algorithm, the proposed procedure recursively makes random draws for each quantity that requires numerical integration while enforcing the conditions stipulated by the algorithm. In an extensive simulation study, we compare the proposed method with existing likelihood simulators that have recently been used to estimate the sequential search model. The proposed method attributes the uncertainty in the search order to the consumer-product-level distribution of search costs and the uncertainty in the purchase decision to the distribution of match values across consumers and products. This results in more precise estimation and an improvement in prediction accuracy. We also show that the proposed method allows for different assumptions on the search cost distribution and that it recovers consumers’ relative preferences even if the utility function and/or the search cost distribution is mis-specified. We then apply our approach to online search data from Expedia for field-data validation. From a substantive perspective, we find that search costs and “position” effects affect products in the lower part of the product listing page more than they do those in the upper part of the page.

Heuristics in risky decision-making relate to preferential representation of information

When making choices, individuals differ from one another, as well as from normativity, in how they weigh different types of information. One explanation for this relates to idiosyncratic preferences in what information individuals represent when evaluating choice options. Here, we test this explanation with a simple risky-decision making task, combined with magnetoencephalography (MEG). We examine the relationship between individual differences in behavioral markers of information weighting and neural representation of stimuli pertinent to incorporating that information. We find that the extent to which individuals (N = 19) behaviorally weight probability versus reward information is related to how preferentially they neurally represent stimuli most informative for making probability and reward comparisons. These results are further validated in an additional behavioral experiment (N = 88) that measures stimulus representation as the latency of perceptual detection following priming. Overall, the results suggest that differences in the information individuals consider during choice relate to their risk-taking tendencies.

Person-specific priorities in solitude.

People value solitude in varying degrees. Theories and studies suggest that people's appreciation of solitude varies considerably across persons (e.g., an introverted person may value solitude more than an extraverted person), and solitude experiences (i.e., on average, people may value some functions of solitude, e.g., privacy, more than other functions, e.g., self-discovery). What are the unique contributions of these two sources? We surveyed a quota-based sample of 501 US residents about their perceived importance of a diverse set of 22 solitude functions. Variance component analysis reveals that both sources contributed to the variability of perceived importance of solitude (person: 22%; solitude function: 15%). Crucially, individual idiosyncratic preferences (person-by-solitude function interaction) had a substantial impact (46%). Further analyses explored the role of personality traits, showing that different functions of solitude hold varying importance for different people. For example, neurotic individuals prioritize emotion regulation, introverted individuals value relaxation, and conscientious individuals find solitude important for productivity. People value solitude for idiosyncratic reasons. Scientific inquiries on solitude must consider the fit between a person's characteristics and the specific functions a solitary experience affords. This research suggests that crafting or enhancing positive solitude experiences requires a personalized approach.

School choice with costly information acquisition

I study a model of centralized school choice in which students engage in costly search over schools before submitting preference reports to a clearinghouse. I consider three classes of preferences over schools—idiosyncratic, common, and hybrid—and characterize outcomes under two search protocols—simultaneous and sequential. With idiosyncratic preferences, there are no search externalities, and inefficiencies arise only because of uncoordinated search. Common preferences, however, generate search externalities: when high-priority students search, seats available to lower-priority students are adversely selected. Consequently, sequential search generates greater welfare than simultaneous search with idiosyncratic preferences but not necessarily with common. Additionally, with common preferences, welfare is nonmonotonic in search costs. I also show that the search protocol affects outcome inequality in important ways. For both protocols, I provide an instrument by which a designer can break students' indifferences in search strategies to coordinate search and increase welfare.

Popularity Bias in Online Dating Platforms: Theory and Empirical Evidence

Problem definition: Generating recommendations of compatible dating partners is a challenging task for online dating platforms because uncovering users’ idiosyncratic preferences is difficult. Thus, platforms tend to recommend popular users to others more frequently than unpopular users. This paper studies such popularity bias in an online dating platform’s recommendations and its consequences for users’ likelihood of finding dating partners. Methodology/results: Motivated by the empirical evidence that a user’s chance of being recommended by the platform’s algorithm increases significantly with the user’s popularity, we study an online dating platform’s incentive that generates popularity bias by modeling the platform’s recommendations and users’ subsequent interactions in a three-stage matching game. Our analysis shows that the recommendations that maximize the platform’s revenue and those that maximize the number of successful matches between users are not necessarily at odds, even though the former leads to a higher bias against unpopular users. Unbiased recommendations result in significantly lower revenue for the platform and fewer matches when users’ implicit cost of evaluating incoming messages is low. Popular users help the platform generate more revenue and a higher number of successful matches as long as these popular users do not become “out of reach.” We validate our theoretical results by running simulations of the platform based on a machine learning–based predictive model that estimates users’ behavior. Managerial implications: Our result indicates that an online dating platform can increase revenue and users’ chances of finding dating partners simultaneously with a certain degree of bias against unpopular users. Online dating platforms can use our theoretical results to understand user behavior and our predictive model to improve their recommendation systems (e.g., by selecting a set of users leading to the highest probabilities of matching or other revenue-generating interactions). Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022.0132 .

Applying EBM epistemology and the GRADE system to address practitioners' disagreements in medical malpractice allegations during COVID-19 pandemic.

The GRADE system of clinical recommendations has deontic implications and can discriminate between mandatory, prohibited, and merely permitted medical decisions. The recommendation categories of the GRADE framework map onto deontological imperatives that can lead to a better understanding and management of allegations of imprudence and appropriateness of treatments. Allegations made during the worst phase of COVID-19 pandemic are used as a case study for exploring the deontic implications of GRADE. Conceptual theoretical analysis, case study analysis, and argumentation in defence of hypotheses. Strong GRADE recommendations for or against treatment are justified by high-quality evidence and can be construed as ethical obligations and prohibitions. In contrast, when evidence for benefit or harm is of lower quality, GRADE yields weak, discretionary recommendations. In such grey area cases, the absence of a duty to prescribe or refuse to prescribe a requested treatment is compatible with the privilege of considering unproven but possibly beneficial options in a private setting. This privilege, however, does not extend to healthcare policymakers, who have a duty to promote actions that serve the public and whose recommendations should not be guided by personal or idiosyncratic preferences or values. If there is no prima facie evidence that a proposed treatment is harmful, doctors are not negligent in considering it in shared doctor-patient decision-making. But these clinical decisions under uncertainty do not transfer obligations to health authorities, who are not part of the decision-making process in clinical settings. The clinical decision-making process concerns particulars and is guided by contextual and specific reasons that do not fall within the scope of a general policy. Thus, in the context of a serious epidemic in which patients need and demand treatments, if the body of evidence is still changing and fragile, an attitude of tolerance and connivance may ensure a smoother transition to a more stable phase of progress, both in scientific and clinical medicine.

A model of voting with motivated beliefs

This paper develops a theory in which heterogeneity in political preferences produces a partisan disagreement about objective facts. A political decision involving both idiosyncratic preferences and scientific knowledge is considered. Voters form motivated beliefs in order to improve their subjective anticipation of the future political outcome, which is determined by two-party competition à la Downs (1957). We provide conditions on preferences under which equilibrium beliefs are monotone along the political spectrum, as voters tend to deny the scientific arguments advocating the political orientations that run counter to their interests. Collective denial is the strongest in societies where contingent policy is the least likely to be implemented. Political competition does not imply policy convergence, as there exists an equilibrium in which each party targets a different group of voters as a function of their (endogenous) level of denial.

The Lawyer in Dickens by Franziska Quabeck

Reviewed by: The Lawyer in Dickens by Franziska Quabeck Robert Sirabian (bio) Franziska Quabeck. The Lawyer in Dickens. Walter de Gruyter, 2021. Pp. 145. $107.99. ISBN 978-3-11-075270-0 (hb). Explaining in the Afterword that she is not writing a history of prejudice against lawyers or a cultural history of lawyers and the law, Franziska Quabeck explores lawyer characters in later Dickens novels from David Copperfield to Our Mutual Friend while speculating about the lawyer in Dickens himself. Although lawyer characters may seem minor, and therefore flat, "representatives of an evil system" (12), Quabeck argues they are more than symbolic representations motivated by greed. They reveal complex human desires that the legal system fosters, specifically an interest in fabricating plots and asserting masculine power through surveillance, particularly over women. These desires become manifest as they break away from Dickens's authorial control, revealing his complex, ambiguous relationship to the law. Although additional context concerning legal history and Victorian culture would be helpful, and an extended discussion of some Dickensian literary criticism would situate the argument more poignantly, The Lawyer in Dickens offers interesting, relevant insights and conclusions. Quabeck's analysis helps readers think further about the important relationship between Dickens and his lawyer characters, and that although rooted in cultural prejudice, Victorian antipathy towards the law reflects the tension between "English law as a set of cultural and linguistic practices" and natural law–an individual, intuitive sense of what is morally and ethically right and wrong (Petch 155). The introductory chapter on the law highlights Dickens's interest in the lawyer as an individual, not just a member of the legal system. According to Quabeck, Dickens offers a "possibly idiosyncratic preference for the solicitor over the barrister" (5), rooted in issues of social class (e.g., being a gentleman) and money, since solicitors were viewed as having a higher social rank. Furthermore, because Dickens has a mixed, conflicted appraisal of lawyers, his lawyer characters can elude the author's conscious control. Lawyers in later novels depart from those in early novels by revealing motivations transcending the law as simply an oppressive system. However, it should be noted that even in The Pickwick Papers, which Quabeck briefly discusses, Dickens presents a complex understanding of the law, specifically the tedium of its daily business transactions and most significantly its [End Page 108] adversarial nature, outlined in Thomas Langbein's The Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial, a source that could be included here. He traces the route, stemming from civil trials, that allowed "lawyer-partisans" to run criminal trials, turning them into competitive contests with lawyers speaking for defendants rather than juries hearing directly from them (1). In Pickwick, minor lawyer characters show an acute understanding of the legal system's customs and written rules as well as an awareness of juries as spectators, which shapes Dickens's depiction of lawyers and judges as actors. This context frames Quabeck's numerous passing references to competition and contests: between Uriah and David, Stryver and Carton, Pip and Jaggers, as well as Tulkinghorn's game with Lady Dedlock. Lawyers in Dickens's novels understand the adversarial nature of the legal system, structured on the cultural ideology of game playing as morality and ethics are framed by the ideology of competition beyond the courtroom into domestic spaces and daily business encounters. Chapter 2 makes the engaging claim that Uriah Heep is a prototype of other Dickens lawyers. Quabeck posits that "[o]n the grounds of David Copperfield, it is […] not unequivocally possible to attest that Dickens 'detests' lawyers–in fact, there seems to be a great degree of that often mentioned attraction of repulsion, a covert admiration for the profession and a strong awareness for the social implications of what it means to be a lawyer" (37). Because Heep is David's rival, the law is also David's "nemesis" (from the chapter title), although David does not realize it. The law is the source of Heep's status and power, particularly his surveillance of and (sexual) desire to control and possess Agnes, which allows his character to transcend its seeming flatness. Readers might be reminded, however, that Heep's charity school education...

Stimulus size modulates idiosyncratic neural face identity discrimination.

Humans show individual differences in neural facial identity discrimination (FID) responses across viewing positions. Critically, these variations have been shown to be reliable over time and to directly relate to observers' idiosyncratic preferences in facial information sampling. This functional signature in facial identity processing might relate to observer-specific diagnostic information processing. Although these individual differences are a valuable source of information for interpreting data, they can also be difficult to isolate when it is not possible to test many conditions. To address this potential issue, we explored whether reducing stimulus size would help decrease these interindividual variations in neural FID. We manipulated the size of face stimuli (covering 3°, 5°, 6.7°, 8.5°, and 12° of visual angle), as well as the fixation location (left eye, right eye, below the nasion, nose, and mouth) while recording electrophysiological responses. Same identity faces were presented with a base frequency of 6Hz. Different identity faces were periodically inserted within this sequence to trigger an objective index of neural FID. Our data show robust and consistent individual differences in neural face identity discrimination across viewing positions for all face sizes. Nevertheless, FID was optimal for a larger number of observers when faces subtended 6.7° of visual angle and fixation was below the nasion. This condition is the most suited to reduce natural interindividual variations in neural FID patterns, defining an important benchmark to measure neural FID when it is not possible to assess and control for observers' idiosyncrasies.

What do Chinese Learners of English Want from a University Writing Centre? A Chinese Tertiary Student’s Views on Writing Centre Peer Tutoring

Tutees are important people in university writing centres, yet their voices, especially what Chinese tutees think about peer writing tutoring, have tended to be largely overlooked in the writing centre scholarship. Adding to this under-researched area, this article reports on an interview with a Chinese tertiary learner of English who shared her views on writing centre peer tutoring. Through thematic content analysis, three core themes were identified: writing centre peer tutoring as an activity for the give-and-take of formative feedback on writing, the tutee’s desire for professional directive guidance, and her perceived role of agenda-setting in ensuring tutoring quality. The implication for writing centre peer tutoring is that tutees may have their idiosyncratic preferences for tutoring strategies which may or may not align with the recommendations in writing centre handbooks and the general literature on teaching and learning. It is hoped that this article will stimulate future scholarly work on tutees’ expectations and perspectives on peer writing tutoring, which can inform writing centre training and tutoring. Keywords: EFL writers, peer-tutoring, student perceptions, tutorial success, writing centre

Emma's Choices: Economics and Modern Narratives of Decision-Making

AbstractIn its depictions of characters' processes of decision-making, Jane Austen's Emma incorporates a model of choice that later came to dominate neoclassical economics. This model is preferential choice, which asserts that individuals choose based on their subjective, idiosyncratic preferences rather than following socially sanctioned value systems. While Emma represents preferential choice and illustrates its connection to consumer capitalism, unlike neoclassical economists, the novel ultimately exhibits skepticism toward this modern model of decision-making. This skepticism is rooted in Emma's conservative economic and political vision. Its conservatism paradoxically gestures to a point that is important to some of today's progressive thought: that our valorization of preferential choice—of the idea that choices should be a matter of individual desire for one option among many—is not inevitable and comes with its own significant difficulties. This article shows that even as the novel distances itself from consumerism's mode of preferential choosing, Emma's representation of preferential choice acknowledges its aesthetic importance in the construction of interiorized characters and in open-ended narrative forms. Such an acknowledgment shows Austen's recognition that consumerist habits of mind are important to literary production, especially at a moment when novels vied for attention in a competitive literary marketplace. In such a marketplace, readers chose among many disparate titles; the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literary field was, indeed, one of the first manifestations of modern consumerism wherein overflowing markets tried to convince shoppers to express their individuality through their preferences for some goods over others.

Losing Hearts & Minds: Aid and Ideology

“Hearts and minds” theory contends development aid strengthens community support for counterinsurgents by providing jobs and public goods. Based on field interviews in Kabul, we develop an alternative theoretical framework emphasizing instead the ideological preferences of civilians. In our model, some aid projects are ideologically contentious while others are benign. Given a mix of foreign aid, each civilian supports either the counterinsurgents or rebels, depending on his/her idiosyncratic preferences. In this setting, greater provisions of aid can actually erode community support. Donors therefore calibrate the mix of foreign aid to appease population groups with relatively strong ideological sensibilities. Individual-level analysis based on unique Afghan data substantiates key features of our theory. Benign projects lead to favorable opinions of development, while contentious aid has the opposite effect. Moreover, favorable opinions of development are associated with stronger support for government and counterinsurgents, and weaker support for rebels.

Policy Modelling for Ambitious Energy Efficiency Investment in the EU Residential Buildings

This paper presents the challenges of increasing the energy efficiency investments in European Union (EU) residential buildings in the context of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. The paper presents the results of the PRIMES buildings model in key energy policy applications to support cost-effective and fair policy making in buildings across Europe. The model covers, in detail, the building sector for all the EU Member States (MS), segmenting the buildings into many categories. The approach proposed includes non-market barriers in conventional microeconomic modelling, which combined with idiosyncratic preferences can capture poor energy efficiency choices and still represent rational behaviours. The model includes a detailed portrayal of policies specific to the sector, comprising economic and regulatory policies as well as institutional measures. The results of the model show that the removal of non-market barriers is of great importance in reducing energy consumption and increasing both the pace and the depth of renovation investment. However, the institutional measures alone are not enough to induce energy efficiency improvement to the scale required to achieve the climate neutrality objectives. Economic (i.e., subsidies) or regulatory measures (i.e., energy performance standards) are also required to decrease emissions and energy consumption in buildings and the paper compares different configurations thereof. The optimum policy mix obviously derives from a compromise among various aims including the cost-effectiveness of the policy budget and the distributional impacts across building and consumer types.

Identification of unobserved distribution factors and preferences in the collective household model

This paper develops a non-parametric collective random utility model with a continuous choice of consumption and sharing. We allow for a heterogeneous population by introducing unobserved distribution factors and preferences that are non-separable in the stochastic household choice system. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for invertibility with respect to the vector of unobserved heterogeneity. Further, we show non-parametric identification of each individual’s idiosyncratic preferences and Pareto weights from the distribution of observed choices. Based on this result we develop a non-parametric two-step estimation procedure and estimate individual counterfactuals in a collective labour supply model for households with children using the LISS panel.

Social identity and economic inequalities

ABSTRACT Neoclassical economists explain social phenomena in the decision-making process with the rational and prudent agent, seeking the highest amount of personal utility with her idiosyncratic preferences. However, atomistic choices and preferences cannot explain the phenomena, such as unequal living conditions and discrimination in labor. The agent, as a human being, is always in interaction with the social environment. Social identity is one of the areas in which the social environment is influential. Social identities are associated with social inequalities, directed by some practices, attitudes and institutions that negatively affect the life prospects of social groups of different identities. Therefore, economists need the social unifying analytical concepts, such as social identity, to comprehend the inequalities and related issues, such as redistribution policies in societies.

Neuromodulation and Individuality.

Within populations, individuals show a variety of behavioral preferences, even in the absence of genetic or environmental variability. Neuromodulators affect these idiosyncratic preferences in a wide range of systems, however, the mechanism(s) by which they do so is unclear. I review the evidence supporting three broad mechanisms by which neuromodulators might affect variability in idiosyncratic behavioral preference: by being a source of variability directly upstream of behavior, by affecting the behavioral output of a circuit in a way that masks or accentuates underlying variability in that circuit, and by driving plasticity in circuits leading to either homeostatic convergence toward a given behavior or divergence from a developmental setpoint. I find evidence for each of these mechanisms and propose future directions to further understand the complex interplay between individual variability and neuromodulators.

Idiosyncratic preferences in games on networks

We consider a fixed network of players endowed with idiosyncratic preferences over actions and involved in interactions of various types. The aim is to investigate the interplay between idiosyncratic preferences and interactional incentives on a network. The earlier literature demonstrated the conflict between players' intrinsic preferences and coordination incentives. This paper shows that such a conflict is also present in contexts in which players do not necessarily aim at coordination with their peers. The introduction of action preferences changes equilibrium outcomes in a non-trivial fashion: some equilibria disappear, while other, qualitatively new ones, appear. We characterize equilibria for a large class of games, including games of strategic complements and strategic substitutes, and outline a subclass with a unique equilibrium in which all players follow their idiosyncratic action preferences. This equilibrium is Pareto optimal and for many games is also a unique efficient profile.

Monopsonistic labor markets and international trade

We study the impact of trade on wage inequality and welfare when the labor market is monopsonistic. Firm heterogeneity in productivity along with workers’ idiosyncratic preferences for different firms generate between-firm wage inequality for workers with identical skills. The model features a novel welfare channel of workers’ “love of firm variety.” Trade liberalization provides additional welfare gains through the firm-variety channel when monopsony power is high but detracts from welfare gains when monopsony power is low.