Making Trade-Offs: A Probabilistic and Context-Sensitive Model of Choice Behavior

The stochastic difference model assumes that decision makers trade normalized attribute value differences when making choices. The model is stochastic, with choice probabilities depending on the normalized difference variable, d, and a decision threshold, δ. The decision threshold indexes a person&#...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological review 2002-01, Vol.109 (1), p.137-155
Main Author: González-Vallejo, Claudia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Choice Behavior
Cognition. Intelligence
Cognitive Processes
Contextual Associations
Decision Making
Decision making. Choice
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Group behaviour
Human
Human behaviour
Humans
Independence
Individuals
Mental Processes
Models, Psychological
Probability
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Stochastic Modeling
Stochastic models
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Summary:The stochastic difference model assumes that decision makers trade normalized attribute value differences when making choices. The model is stochastic, with choice probabilities depending on the normalized difference variable, d, and a decision threshold, δ. The decision threshold indexes a person's sensitivity to attribute value differences and is a free estimated parameter of the model. Depending on the choice context, a person may be more or less sensitive to attribute value differences, and hence δ may be used to measure context effects. With proportional difference used as the normalization, the proportional difference model (PD) was tested with 9 data sets, including published data (e.g., J. L. Myers, M. M. Suydam, & B. Gambino, 1965 ; A. Tversky, 1969 ). The model accounted for individual and group data well and described violations of stochastic dominance, independence, and weak and strong stochastic transitivity.
ISSN:0033-295X
1939-1471
DOI:10.1037/0033-295X.109.1.137